


Dust and Starlight

by Grassepi



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: (which is the most important part), Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Royalty, F/F, Fae & Fairies, Fluff, M/M, Romance, Some pretty blatant Rapunzel parallels tbh, a touch of angst, lots of dancing and magic and LONG HAIRED VIKTOR
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-17
Updated: 2017-05-03
Packaged: 2018-09-25 02:51:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 24,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9799571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grassepi/pseuds/Grassepi
Summary: Katsuki Yuuri is on a quest to find the lost castle of Russia- and more importantly, it's lost treasure. However, not every destiny is found in glory and battle, and the treasure that Yuuri finds might not be in the form of gold and jewels. (Somethingspeople are infinitely better than gold and jewels)In which: Yuuri's been looking for his destiny for a long time, Viktor's been waiting for his knight in shining armour for longer, and Yuri just wishes there was a reality where he didn't have to save their dumb asses.





	1. How to Ruin Your Dagger In Two Easy Steps (1. Be Dramatic) (2. Fuck)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to my newest story!! I'm super jazzed to be starting this journey with y'all and I hope it goes as well as I want it to! FYI, it took me like 10 years to get AO3 to even post this, so im actually so hype it even went through just now;;;
> 
> This first chap is more like an intro/prologue, we'll get to the juicy stuff next chapter ∠( ￣ヮ￣」∠)＿

Vines stretch up over the castle walls, reaching far across the stone and into the darkness above, beyond what Yuuri could see. The thick, dark swathes of forest recede a little around the abandoned palace, allowing him some space to stare up at it. Trying to swallow back his nerves, he gulps down dry air and tastes the chilly fog in his throat. Yuuri’s found it.

“Tall…” Yuuri murmurs to himself, craning back his neck even further. He backs up a few steps from the cold stone walls but he’s still entirely unable to see the top of the castle. It’s a true fortress, stretching up higher and higher, all the way to the peaceful moon slumbering overhead... if the rumours are true. 

If the rumours are true, this castle’s been abandoned for the past twelve years, structure left to crumble into dust and be rebuilt with greenery. Mist covers and fills what once was full of bright light, the castle surrounded by a forest so treacherous and unnavigable that only the most determined may find a way through it. If the rumours are true, the greatest kingdom in the world once ruled from this fortress, before they were forced to flee from a wicked curse cast by a wronged witch. Those who suffered the curse were doomed to be alone, unable to be found by anyone, unable to find anyone, with no way to break their imprisonment. Even though the people who had once lived within the castle escaped the spell, the castle itself had been enchanted, and lost to history ever since. Everything within it, every scrap of treasure or fine cloth, every important document or book, everything that once made it the most enviable centre of ruling in the world, had been lost for what many thought was forever. If the rumours are true, there is a treasure inside so grand nothing could measure to its equal.

So the rumours say.

The only thing that Yuuri knows is true- verifiably and unequivocally- with proof right before his eyes, is that the curse that kept this castle from view is fading. The most incredible treasure hoard of them all exists in their world once more. 

Yuuri steps forward again- leather boots soaked through from trudging through tall damp grass, shivering slightly from the pervasive chill of the rain- and presses a hand to the side of the castle. It feels silent and still beneath his touch. As if there is nothing within, as if the entire structure is simple brick and nothing more. 

“How can I get in…?” Yuuri wonders aloud, still captivated by the majesty of the castle, peering to his left and right to try and see if there’s any sign of a window, an entrance. The walls stretch away from him, seamless and unbroken. Any sign of a crack or opening is hidden by the veil of the night and Yuuri thinks he’ll have to wait until morning to keep going. He’s been travelling for a long time. It’s time for a rest. 

“Who the hell are you?!” someone yells, all the way from the other corner of the castle, but so loudly that it easily carries to Yuuri’s ears. He blinks at the castle wall, then turns his head towards the noise. 

Through the black, a tiny figure makes itself clear, though Yuuri has to squint, uncertain if he’s looking at a tree stump or a person for a while. They’re too far away for him to make out any details at all. 

The idea of yelling out who he is to this stranger makes him uncomfortable, even if they’re the only two around, so he starts to walk towards them, suddenly entirely aware of how heavy his eyes are and how much effort it takes to keep dragging his aching feet along. The light rain made his glasses unusable a long time ago, and a droplet rolls across his lenses once more, distorting the figure.

“I asked you a question!” the person yells again, sounding even more agitated. Yuuri hastily stumbles forward a little faster, apologies ready on his lips for making them wait. They don’t look so far away now, and it’s obvious that the reason Yuuri had difficulty spotting them in the night is the collection of dark cloaks laid over their shoulders. They’re smaller than he expected.

“Sorry, just wait a minute!” Yuuri yells back, picking up his pace to a light jog to cover the last of the distance to the figure. He’s glad he isn’t wearing a cloak like the stranger’s- it would snag on everything and anything in that maze of a forest.

Panting a little, his breath clouding in the crisp fall air but dispersing immediately under the cold rain, Yuuri looks over the impatient stranger. He sees at the way the stranger holds himself with such self-importance, at the way his blond hair falls elegantly over his thin shoulders, at the lithe waist just barely visible under the dark fur cloaks. Yuuri immediately recognizes him. 

“Yuri Plisetsky, crown prince of Russia,” he whispers into the night, voice quietly shaking. The sixteen-year old heir has every right to be sneering down at Yuuri right now, tossing his hair back with one haughty shake of his head. “I- I didn’t realize you’d be here.”

“Of course I’m here, idiot!” Yuri Plisetsky cries out, jabbing a finger forward and into Yuuri’s chest, getting into Yuuri’s personal space. Angry and loud and intimidating. “This is _my_ country’s old territory, not yours! Go back to Japan!”

Yuuri can’t go back to Japan. His long, long list of failures is haunting him, weighing him down, dragging his ankles. Every second he’s in Japan he can feel pitying eyes watching him, feel the weight of his importance to the kingdom, feel lacking in every possible way. The only way he can ever feel free anymore is to set out on another quest, to leave Japan behind, to keep looking for his destiny- the destiny he wants. Every crown prince of any nation has a destiny, has a quest just for them, has a path set out for them. Yuuri just… seems to have missed his, somewhere along the way. It doesn’t matter if he keeps failing quests, as long as he’s able to keep looking for more, keep feeling so light and free. But Japan has a way of trickling into his thoughts and reminding him that maybe, just maybe, Yuuri doesn’t have anything meant to be tacked to his name other than ruler. Yuuri might just be the failure prince, who will probably die looking for his destiny, alone and afraid, suffering under the weight of a quest meant for another. 

Yuuri simply can’t go back to Japan.

“I came here because of the rumours,” Yuuri says, calmly, because he is twenty-three and not about to let a sixteen-year old toss him aside in contempt. Even if the Russian is heir to the most powerful kingdom in the lands, and could probably utter a single throwaway decree and get Japan blasted off the map. His voice is far more confident than he feels. “And this isn’t your castle anymore.”

Yuri Plisetsky opens his mouth to protest, then bites his tongue as no substantial argument comes to mind, looking like if Yuuri so much as moves, he’ll lash out. A flash of silver catches the moon’s light as Yuri steps back, the dagger at his waist offering a much more immediate threat if Yuuri says the wrong thing. 

He doesn’t think that Yuri Plisetsky could kill him though. The sword at his own waist can keep him safe. 

“This is my quest,” Yuri declares finally, bristling with animosity, leaning up on his toes to try and match Yuuri’s height. It doesn’t work. “Stop trying to steal away everyone else’s destiny, you failure of a prince! How could this possibly be your quest? Find something from your own kingdom and legends!”

Yuuri looks down at the prince boiling over with anger before him- full of spit and scathing words, ready to burn anyone who goes near him- and then he looks beyond him. There’s no horse, no entourage, no supplies left closer to the woods. Yuri Plisetsky is the sixteen-year old heir of Russia, and he has no protection whatsoever. Yuri is alone here. The same as Yuuri.

“Is it really your quest? Is it really mine? I don’t think either of us know the answer to that,” Yuuri says, smiling just a little as Yuri openly blinks in confusion, drawn out of his temper tantrum for a moment by the mystery of Yuuri’s words. “You came here on your own, didn’t you? Just like I did.”

Yuri immediately goes red, shoulders visibly shaking with repressed rage, but there’s a gem of truth in his sharp green eyes that answers Yuuri’s question before the other boy even says anything. Yuri Plisetsky snuck out of Russia, the country he represents and will one day be responsible for, to come here. Yuri is a runaway, seeking out a quest he doesn’t know belongs to him.

Maybe there isn’t that much different about their situations after all.

“This is none of your business!” Yuri cries, hands flying to his dagger, white cotton tunic becoming more obvious beneath his dark cloaks as they fly open. Yuuri doesn’t bother reaching for his sword. Even as apprehension streaks through his head, he’s not going to open up the option of violence by responding to the threat. “I’m here for Viktor!”

“Viktor? ...Viktor Nikiforov?” Yuuri repeats back, tilting his head in question, the name familiar on his tongue. Yuri doesn’t deny it, because what other Viktor could he be talking about? The name brings up memories of an older boy, one with sparkling turquoise eyes and silky silver hair, who said things in a language Yuuri didn’t know and laughed with an emotion that Yuuri had felt like he might one day be able to understand. Confusion seeps up in the brief silence. “Isn’t… Viktor back in Russia?”

“Of course Viktor’s back in Russia, where else would he be?!” Yuri’s eyes are sparking, metal crashing against metal in the steely green, realizing he’s given too much away. His dagger’s drawn and his teeth are bared. He doesn’t move to attack. Yuri takes several steps away from Yuuri, like he’s repulsed by him, like he knows how flimsy and forced his excuse sounds. Like the only two options he has left are to run or fight. 

“Please, calm down,” Yuuri says, raising his hands in a pacifying gesture, but the tension in the sixteen-year old’s shoulders only tightens, fingers in a white-knuckled grip over his dagger handle. Raindrops slip peacefully over the edges of the blade to the ground below. Yuuri still doesn’t believe he’ll use it. “I’m not here to fight you! I’m only here for the quest to find the lost castle’s treasure!”

“Leave,” Yuri hisses, glaring up at Yuuri furiously, slamming the dagger into the stone wall of the castle. It settles a good way in, creating the most awful sound to scrape through their ears. The blade’s definitely been ruined, Yuuri can tell that much, but Yuri only hesitates for a moment before continuing. Yuri has too much pride to acknowledge his own stupid move just ruined his only weapon. “I’ll take care of this quest. The treasure belongs to Russia, to me, not your lousy little nation.”

Yuuri suddenly feels the overwhelming weight of an seven year difference in maturity, watching Yuri turn on his heel and start to march away, leaving the dagger behind in the wall- it’s useless now- and reaching out to snag his shoulder, to catch the naive youth. The fur cloaks are drenched through under his grip. Yuri must be close to freezing.

“What now?!” Yuri yells, too agitated to control his voice, a hand already clenching into a fist, ready to punch Yuuri’s lights out. Quickly removing his hand lest he be scorched, Yuuri slings his travelling pack off his back, showing the younger boy the food he’s prepared.

“There’s no point searching the castle now. It’s too dark, and we’d be scrambling around trying to find a torch to see with,” Yuuri begins to explain, though he’s not certain if Yuri is listening anymore, too busy drooling over the food being offered to him. Yuuri completely understands, because it doesn’t look like Yuri’s eaten anything in the past decade. His waist is thinner than his patience. “We should camp out until morning. I can start a fire and make us food.”

Yuri doesn’t verbally agree, but he does snatch an apple out of the open bag Yuuri’s offering, and follows after Yuuri when he heads out to the widest clearing he can see from their spot by the castle wall, the grass trimmed neatly by wandering deer and the forest right next door for firewood. It’s exhausting, putting together camp from such an inadequate position- too much grass, difficulty in finding stones to contain the fire, and all the firewood he finds is damp. However, eventually Yuri starts to help, obviously tired of Yuuri’s careful and methodical method. He has a strange talent for finding dry spots under bushes, returning from the dark woods with enough dry firewood to last them the night, and they have a fire crackling merrily within an hour. At some point, the rain stops.

The warm, bright light of the fire lets Yuuri better make out Yuri’s face, lets him see the dark circles and creased brows. He can see the worry etched into every line of the teenager’s face. Yuuri doesn’t ask, knowing he won’t get a response other than anger. As he watches the coiled-up spring of tension fall loose as the younger boy grows warmer, and then as the long lashes fall closed over the clear green eyes, Yuuri does his best to think instead. 

“Viktor Nikiforov,” He whispers to the fire, which only responds with a slight crackle, nothing else in the night awake to hear him, “Is… was the shining jewel of Russia, gorgeous and beloved, the light of the kingdom… shining on many, many more lives than he probably intended…”

A dinner party when Yuuri was eight. They travelled so far to get there. People talking, some softly in quiet corners, some loudly and boisterously at crowded tables. The walls were golden, emitting a glow that washed over everyone in the room, making them look unreal and plastic. His parents were drinking wine, laughing with some other adults, and he couldn’t see past the brightly coloured skirts of the ladies from his spot standing against the wall. Yuuri wasn’t supposed to be there. 

He’d had a bad dream, crawled out of silken sheets, and left behind the guest room where they were staying. Following the sound of joyous conversation and beautiful music, he was immediately out of place in a room where everyone was dressed to their best. Yuuri was an eight year old in nightclothes. A dance floor stood between himself and his parents, and there was no way to cross it. There was only his bare feet on cold marble and the tears beading in his eyes, stinging viciously as he tried to contain it all. Someone took his hand suddenly, and Yuuri almost jerked away instinctively, but when he looked up, the person was smiling at him. He was young, not as young as Yuuri, but far, far away from being an adult. Yuuri thought the boy might have been a fairy, his silver hair falling over bare shoulders, clear skin emanating beauty through every pore. There was magic dancing in his turquoise eyes- the colour of the sea in tropical lands.

They’d danced, as silly as that was, a twelve year old and an eight year old, one in nightclothes and one the most beautiful person in the room; out of beat to the music because Yuuri didn’t quite understand how to match music at the time, but following their own rhythm. The night was a blur of silver hair and golden walls, blue eyes and the way they crinkled with laughter. 

Yuuri hadn’t talked to Viktor Nikiforov after that night when he was eight years old, always embarrassed to speak to him, Yuuri’s aging allowing him clarity on how humiliating that must have been for Viktor. Still, he can’t help but feel warm when he thinks of it, drinking in the forgotten memory. 

“But… Viktor’s gone,” Yuuri murmurs to the fire, which is quieting with every draft of wind. He starts to tuck more tinder into its flame, letting it grow and flare once more. “He and his mother were kicked out of the Russian royal family when the king took a new wife as queen… one who he already had a son with. He should be living in peace in Russia, albeit not as royalty.”

The wind blows furiously, the trees rustle, and the fire sputters a little more. Yuri’s platinum blonde hair stirs over his sleeping face, prompting him to turn away from the sudden wind, though he isn’t shivering like Yuuri is; he’s too well-protected by his (now dry) thick fur cloaks. Something feels ominous, with the castle hanging over him, the moon full and bright, the grass wavering in the breeze. 

He thinks he hears a noise from the castle. 

Yuuri suddenly desperately wishes he was already asleep, so he didn’t have to face that noise, didn’t have to face the creeping fear crawling up his spine. His eyes are huge, and as he stares at the castle wall, he becomes more and more convinced that the slight difference in colour between one section and the other means that there’s an entrance there. He’d walked right past it earlier. 

Yuri Plisetsky is without a dagger, sixteen and over-emotional, but he is brave and brash, and if he woke up, he’d go plunging into the castle without a second thought. However… he wouldn’t allow Yuuri to go with him for the world, not even if Yuuri offered the other prince his sword or his kingdom. Yuri places far more value on his own pride than paltry things like weapons or gold.

“Sorry, Yuri,” Yuuri mutters, still staring at the entrance, becoming more and more convinced that he isn’t mistaking anything. That there’s a reason the noise only came once Yuri was asleep. “This might be my quest after all.”

He stands, feeding a few more sticks to the fire to keep it going, then contemplates the sleeping boy’s body for a moment. His dagger is gone. While Yuuri doesn’t think anything will come charging out of the woods… it isn’t safe to just leave him. Carefully, he unbuckles his sword sheath, leaving the weapon beside Yuri’s sleeping form, smiling to himself as soft and snuffling snores become audible to his ears when he bends to place the sword down. 

He doesn’t know what’s in the castle, what he could be facing, but he isn’t leaving a sixteen-year old entirely alone without a form of self-defense, even if they seem to be entirely alone and reasonably safe out here. Yuuri trusts in his quest. He trusts it won’t immediately require him to need a sword, even though a lot of quests sure do seem to want him to have that. 

Sweat prickles along his back, the wind tearing easily through his clothes to chill the beads of moisture. His hands are shaking. He can’t tell whether it’s from the cold or fear.

“Breathe,” he reminds himself as he starts to make his way back through the waist-high grass to the castle walls, the trampled path of Yuri from earlier making his journey twice as fast. “You can do this. You want… You’re getting...”

Yuuri pauses. There’s nothing in the castle he particularly wants or needs. The grand treasure of the lost castle is simply wealth, and Yuuri doesn’t really care about wealth. He’s only in this because… it’s a quest, and it could be his quest. Indecision, guilt, and uncertainty swarm up from his gut, engulfing his head, making him drag a hand through his hair. 

Yuri is here for his history, his kingdom, his right as an heir. He’s here for Viktor, whatever that means, and he cares so much about this, cares so much about everything. He won’t forgive Yuuri for stealing this quest out from under him while he slept. 

The quests, the ones Yuuri goes on and fails, there’s always someone else who completes them, in the end. He has a long long list of failures, failures that turned into successes for others, sometimes because of Yuuri’s help. Is that his destiny? Helping other heirs to the thrones complete their quest? 

“That’s not enough,” Yuuri says, hoping the world is listening. He’s ready for fate and destiny to start paying attention to him for once. “But what am I doing _here_? Where am I hoping to go?”

The wind offers no answers, only humming in his ears, but the castle makes another noise, and then another. Like will o'wisps leading Yuuri closer and closer, until he’s standing on the layer of dust in the castle entrance created from twelve years of neglect. The wind is silent, left behind him. The floor under his feet is solid and dry. Yuuri vainly tries to parse out shapes from the darkness ahead of him, but sees nothing at all through the black. 

Maybe this isn’t his destined quest. Maybe Yuri will rise in the morning and have to come find Yuuri’s dead body. Maybe he’s simply meant to be a failure- some people are. 

He spies a torch, unlit, but perfectly fine, a little ways down on the stone wall. He hurries to collect it, breathing loud and quick in the quiet. A thick, richly red carpet- now brown with dirt- softens his heavy footfalls. 

Yuuri sprints back to the fire, refusing to look at Yuri or his supplies he’d left behind. This is only a detour. He’s already plucked up the courage to enter the castle; he isn’t going to back out now. 

Lighting the torch, Yuuri takes a deep breath, relishing in the fresh air. The castle’s air was thick with dust and mildew. He might not have the privilege of breathing in something so clean and clear ever again.

Yuuri heads back into the castle. The light from the torch illuminates what he couldn’t see before- stone walls that stretch high up, the ceiling at least twice Yuuri’s height. Delicate glass chandeliers hold lumps of wax that may have once been candles. Marble pillars line the hallway, lines of something silver worked into the white, catching the light of Yuuri’s torch and reflecting it. 

Across the way, there’s a huge wooden door, complete with a steadfast silver lock. It’s nearly as tall as the entryway itself, and as Yuuri approaches it, he can’t seem to breathe properly. The door is intimidating. Everything in here is intimidating. It’s grand, if old-fashioned, and the shadows hiding in the corners of the room don’t waver no matter where Yuuri swings his torch.

Squeezing his eyes shut, Yuuri rests his free hand on the oak door, gradually letting it drift towards the silver latch. This is his last chance to turn back. There’s no telling what will be on the other side of this door.

Yuuri opens the lock, and slowly pulls the door open enough for him to fit through- grunting under the strain to his muscles. Shoving his torch through the darkened opening first, he lets out a soft gasp at what he sees. It’s a place out of his memories, out of his wildest daydreams, a place he thought he’d left behind long ago. Yuuri never thought he’d come back to that golden ballroom where he first danced with Viktor. Yet here he is.

Slipping through the opening, Yuuri’s too busy revelling in the majesty of the glowing walls and pearly white floors- etched through with silver, just like the pillars- to notice the door close gently behind him. 

The silver latch locks itself again.

When Yuri awakes in the morning, the entrance to the castle will be gone, without a sign of it ever being there. 

Just like Yuuri himself.


	2. #Let Yuuri Say Fuck 2k17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heyo y'all, it's been a bit!
> 
> so where has ur girl been at? ~~probably not writing, that's the fuck where~~
> 
> March: i was working on two projects at once AND stressing about school and got nothing done for any of those three things at all. I partially blame my friends for this. Especially @JamtheDingus. She is far too funny?? Stop distracting me and let me write lmao (also go check her out, she writes Voltron:LD ~~and also porn~~ and i love her)
> 
> April: started Camp NaNoWriMo! It's like NaNoWriMo, but like, lamer. Because i'm bad at writing large amounts and don't have the guts for anything more, I put my goal at 30K words in a month. I also put my other writing project (a haikyuu fic! ) on halt and focussed purely on writing this fic for the whole month! And GUESS WHAT Y'ALL  
> im not doing great :\ I was doing super good for half the month and then just stopped writing for an entire week??? and now im like 12K words away from the deadline that's in like 4 days lmao
> 
> BTW I have,, in procrastinating on writing this/doing homework, been doing some bg artwork for this fic. hopefully i'll be done the pieces for this chapter soon and be able to put them up? i'll let you know in an authors note when they're _all_ up here so u can go check them out!! im a little worried my art skills are lacking compared to my descriptions but hopefully its okay!! for now it's just the one piece :000
> 
> tl;dr: im doing my best and heres a thing!!! enjoy!!

The only sound in the ballroom is the soft tapping of Yuuri’s feet, measured and careful against the marble floors as he crosses the ballroom. It’s bitingly cold in here. His torch reflects off the luminous walls and once-polished floor, providing a bounty of light to walk by, though Yuuri isn’t moving that quickly. He isn’t particularly sure of what to do next. Quests, in his experience, are guided by an unknown hand that leads someone to their destiny, and very rarely is any actual initiative needed. 

Every time Yuuri has ever been on a quest, the moment the world stops offering him answers, everything goes awfully wrong. There’s a trail of stories with the wrong endings left behind Yuuri. Some hint or clue he missed, someone who didn’t want to help him, some magic puzzle that Yuuri couldn’t possibly solve. 

As dangerously lauded as they are, quests usually go stunningly smoothly for the person they’re made for. Yuuri’s heard the miraculous stories. Yuuri’s seen the people, the princes, who make it to the good endings. He’s wanted to be one of them, so badly. 

He’s been guided thus far. The sudden lack of help makes his heart rate pick up, makes his breathing scratch against the quiet of the room- threatening to break the silence entirely. 

Maybe he was wrong in his intuition. Maybe this isn’t where he’s supposed to be. Maybe the noise was meant for Yuri Plisetsky, and Yuuri made a giant mistake in following it. 

Sweat lines his palms and he places his free hand on the nearest wall to steady himself. This room is so huge. So empty. The ceiling is far above, lined with chandeliers not used for seven years. 

Yuuri feels very small in here. The torch shakes in his grip. 

The golden wall is rough under his palm when his hand slips downwards, and Yuuri startles at the sensation. Gold isn’t supposed to feel like that. Swinging his light around to cast its glow over the wall properly, Yuuri feels the breath leave his lungs in a single exhale at the sight before him. 

Purple paint crawls over the golden surface, melting into pink at random, swirls and lines and curls that break into waves. It’s an ocean, until it becomes the sky, the brush strokes turning gentle and sweeping. White clouds pepper the mural, indifferent to whether the background is ocean or sky, and Yuuri doesn’t know what he’s looking at. All Yuuri knows is that it’s beautiful. The painting is gigantic, covering panels and panels of wallspace, and no matter how far Yuuri walks, there seems to be more. Blues and indigos mix with white stars and a hovering silver moon. Orange sunsets burn bright into red fire, alive and passionate before Yuuri’s eyes. Behind it all, a backdrop of gold. 

The entire wall is covered. It’s a masterpiece.

He’s drawn into it, enthralled by the magical creatures and sunlit dappled forests. The wall becomes his whole world, for at least a moment.

Yuuri traces his fingers along the spine of a gigantic emerald dragon, depicted lovingly with intelligent, searching yellow eyes and terrifying sharp claws. Yuuri’s seen a dragon before. They’re ancient, wise beasts with magic powerful enough to scare a fae and morals so set in stone not even a siren’s call could change their mind about something. He imagines he can feel every individual scale as his fingertips brush over the image. He’s being as gentle as he can. Yuuri doesn’t want to damage a single fleck of paint.

Yuuri’s even tried to slay a dragon before.

The dragon hadn’t spoken to Yuuri, but it had known he was there. It had known that Yuuri wasn’t meant to challenge it. The dragon had looked at him, and turned away. Yuuri had gone back to Japan after two months hunting down that dragon in shame. It was one of the most humiliating experiences in his life. 

Yuuri supposes he should be grateful the dragon didn’t kill him, because now he can be here, in this moment. His fingers aren’t shaking anymore.

The dragon didn’t kill him. Yuuri is here now.

The least he can do is try. There are no dragons to say no to him here. Probably. And if the quest really does belong to Yuri Plisetsky, Yuuri will just… go back home again.

In shame. 

Yuuri takes a deep breath and walks past the dragon. He traces over forests and mountains and snowfalls, flower fields and abstract colours. He eventually comes to a set of huge, heavy doors leading out of the ballroom. They’re polished oak- closed but unlocked. Yuuri turns the silver handle, tests it. It slides open as easily as if it’s been used everyday in the past seven years. 

This castle is supposed to be empty of everything except for Yuuri and the treasure. 

So who painted the pictures on the walls?

Yuuri doesn’t know if he wants to find out. His breathing turns shallow and quick, thinking of the dragon that looked away from him. He thinks of the work he put in to find the great beast, thinks of the mound of sparkling jewels and burnished gold coins it lay on, thinks of the long journey home. Yuuri doesn’t want to do that ever again.

Yuuri squeezes his eyes shut, exhales sharply, and opens the door. He doesn’t know why he expected anything other than the corridor he finds, long with high ceilings and as extravagant as the rest of the castle. There’s more paint on the walls, easily visible this time. Yuuri’s surrounded by a blanket of white. 

The artist has showered the corridor walls with a flurry of creamy feathers, falling like snow down the otherwise deep red walls. The lighter paint pops out, almost glowing against the burgundy, and Yuuri wonders at the thousands of tiny, intricate details in the feathers. Speckles of light brown and grey make them look eerily real. Yuuri almost expects them to feel soft to the touch. They’re not.

The corridor leads to another set of oak doors with silver handles, left half open. 

Yuuri keeps breathing as slowly as he can. He doesn’t have a sword. He’s defenseless if he encounters something (or someone) dangerous. His palms are sweaty around the torch again and Yuuri feels a wave of exasperation at his own mind. He can’t keep getting this afraid to just cross through a doorway. If anything, he should look forward to it. There might be treasure or more paintings on the other side of the door.

Somehow, thinking this doesn’t make the anxiety any better.

Yuuri slips through the creaking door, worrying his lip between his teeth at the sight of stairs waiting for him there. A giant spiral staircase, the walls rounded and covered in paintings of creeping green vines and blue roses. Yuuri realizes he’s reached one of the tall towers of the old castle. The stairs lead up on his right and down on his left, stone beneath his feet with oak railings winding away. Yuuri jumps as the thick oak door swings shut noisily behind him, grinding against the floor. It needs to be oiled, badly. 

He doesn’t know which way to go.

On Yuuri’s right- the ascending staircase- the painted vines carry their blue roses, all tilted upwards. As if seeking out sunlight, even when there is none being offered. Nasty looking green brambles and thorns tumble down the walls of the descending staircase on Yuuri’s left. Yuuri casts his torches light over both ways forward, and swallows thickly around the fear still sitting tight in his throat.

He’ll go up, for no other reason then the flowers are pointing that way.

Yuuri hurries up the stairs, wary of anything that could be waiting for him or following behind him- the torch is swung around Yuuri’s body to cast light backwards more than once. He keeps imagining something is watching him. The prickling in his neck is (probably) just his anxiety. 

He keeps looking behind him anyways.

The stairs swing around, and after two rotations of the tower, Yuuri comes to a landing. It’s almost identical to the floor below- tall wooden doors and shiny silver handles. Eager to be out of the somehow sinister stairwell, Yuuri pushes past the doors without a second thought. 

The walls of this corridor are purple, indigo, violet. Glowing yellow stars hang from the ceiling on painted white chains, and at the end of the hallway directly across from Yuuri, on the opposing wall, there rests a dull gray moon. It’s shockingly monotone compared to the vibrancy of all the other murals. It’s simply… a large gray circle. 

[](http://s1320.photobucket.com/user/grassepi/media/Viktors%20Hallway_zpsiazhcbe6.png.html)

Adjacent rooms are littered down the corridor, their doors painted into the night sky mural almost seamlessly. There are two diverging hallways on either side of the flat moon, forming a sharp T-shape. 

Yuuri watches the light of the torch flame dance over the walls, admires the way the stars seem to sparkle and glimmer. The marble beneath his feet isn’t dusty. His boots grip the polished surface easily as he warily steps further into the hall.

Something skitters loudly across the stone floor up ahead. 

Yuuri can’t make anything out through the darkness. His breathing picks up immediately, heart working overtime to keep up with the burst of stress. 

What was that?

The sound continues, growing quieter and louder almost at random, rhythmic in its order. Yuuri’s frozen, afraid to move in case of making a noise. It sounds like the scrape of claws, of talons; a familiar but still terrifying sound.

The rumours say no human was left behind in the cursed castle, but the rumours didn’t say anything about what else might have been left behind. 

Yuuri’s torch flickers lazily in his hand, refusing to light anything more than the area just around him. The diverging corridors are nothing but inky black darkness at the end of the hall. The moon is the farthest thing he can see, resplendent in its mediocrity.

The clicking just keeps going, and coming back, and going again.

His palms are so sweaty. He thinks he might drop the torch at this rate.

Whatever’s making the noise comes closer again, and it doesn’t turn away this time. Yuuri holds his breath, wishing he’d thought to put the torch out the moment he heard the clicking. The bright light is only a target in the thick, murky darkness. The taste of copper suddenly explodes into his mouth, blood making his lower lip slick against his upper. He hadn’t even realized he was biting his cheek. The pain is stinging and the taste is awful, but Yuuri can’t afford to complain. 

The clicking is just about to reach the moon at the end of the hall and the creature will see Yuuri’s light. The creature will spot Yuuri. The blue roses led him astray. 

Something dark peers around the edge of the corridor, and black eyes gleam from reflected torchlight.

Yuuri doesn’t quite know what he’s looking at. The creature is wrapped up in darkness, using the veil of night as camouflage. Only its head appears, looking around the edge of the hallway at the level of Yuuri’s knees.

Another head appears, taller than Yuuri. He thinks he can see its neck, leading down to the other head below it. 

The only sound in the corridor is the crackle of the torch, and the creature’s heavy breathing. (Yuuri isn’t breathing anymore.)

A stiffness has worked its way through his muscles, paralyzing him in place. Yuuri’s faced magical creatures before. He’s bowed his head before a unicorn and had it bow back, he’s traveled through the beautiful oasis of the fortune spirits, he’s stared a dragon in the eye and escaped the dirty tricks and curses of the pixies. The only magical creatures he can think of with two heads are trolls, ogres, and chimeras. This silent, shadowy being is none of them. 

If there is one thing, one thing at all that Yuuri has learned in his questing, it’s that if a magical creature is mysterious, vague and shrouded in shadow? There’s only one option that isn’t going to end up with dead bodies. 

Yuuri drops the torch, spins on his heel, and takes off down the hallway. 

Time to run. (Maybe Yuri Plisetsky will want to deal with this later.)

The wooden doors refuse to give under his push for a moment as he twists the lock but he doesn’t dare look back. The door opens a split second later, probably costing him half his lifespan from fear for the wait. Yuuri takes off down the stairs. All he can hear is his own harsh, gulping breathing and the blood pulsing in his ears. 

Yuuri’s body and thoughts are moving far too fast for him to keep track of each and every little thing around him, but his brain tries anyway. The sudden loss of light is forcing his eyes to adjust quickly, the pitch of the castle around him already looking more gray than black as he throws caution to the wind to practically leap down the stairs. 

He’s completed one full rotation of the stairway when he hears the doors get thrown open again behind him. Flickering light seeps into the edges of his vision, his chaser carrying his torch. Are they humanoid then? Do they have hands?

This is entirely Phichit’s fault for offering Yuuri this quest in the first place and if he makes it out of this awful castle alive, he’s going to wring the oblivious fortune spirit’s neck.

“Stupid-” Yuuri hisses as loudly as he dares- “fortune spirits!” He’s skipping three steps at a time and praying uselessly in his head to the same person he’s cursing aloud; Yuuri can’t afford the bad luck of a sprained ankle or missed step right now, not with something rushing down the stairs behind him. Phichit’s blessed him so many times in getting out of tight spots. Surely one more time won’t hurt.

Yuuri can hear rapid fire clicking, heavy breathing, and rustling noises. The shadow creature is getting closer. It’s faster than Yuuri. He imagines it reaching for the back of his neck with a clawed hand, millimetres from grasping him.

Throwing himself down the last five steps and barreling into the oak doors at the end of the landing from the momentum, he pauses. Clicking and thumping echo down the stairwell, the sound of something heavy descending as quickly as possible. The silver door handle begins to reflect scarlet light back into Yuuri’s eyes, the torch’s light reaching around the bend of the tower walls. Even if he goes through these doors, where can he possibly run? 

Yuuri pants for breath and presses his palms against the dusty wood. Remembers the layer of dust he’d scraped off the floor with this very door, the fancy marble underneath. 

The doors upstairs had been well oiled, well used. These doors are not. 

These doors creak.

Yuuri rears back and kicks it open, always more reliant on his legs than his arms. Using the cover of the harsh, violent creaking noise, he heads down the stairs towards the lower floors, desperate to round the bend so the creature can’t possibly see him. Yuuri follows the path of the painted tumbleweeds until his back presses into the sharp curve of the center pillar of the tower, halfway down the stairs. Invisible.

His heart jumps against the inside of his chest. His lungs ache to inhale. 

Slapping a hand over his mouth, Yuuri takes a huge breath of dry, stale air into his throat. He needs to be quiet now. 

If he can’t run, he’ll hide. 

The clicking and thumping gets louder and louder. Yuuri dares a single glance backwards as the creature reaches the landing- too curious for his own good- to see a vaguely humanoid shape crash into the doors with the loudest thump yet. In a flash of silver and flame they’re gone.

The door slams shut behind them.

Yuuri’s about to breath a sigh of relief and offer Phichit a dignified apology for losing faith in the workings of fate the fortunes have woven for him. 

Then he realizes the clicking, clacking, tapping of talons against stone hasn’t stopped. The creature isn’t two headed at all. There are two beasts.

Something is still in the stairwell with him.

Yuuri inhales sharply, reflexively, unable to help himself. All he can do is tighten the clamp his hand has over his mouth to try to mute any noise he makes. Adrenaline is making his limbs buzz with energy and tension. The fresh blood on his lip tastes like iron and salt.

His eyes are totally adjusted to the dark now, though there is still an impressive amount of impenetrable dark. Yuuri can’t make out the trail of tumbleweeds and brambles painted on the tower walls from where he stands. He doesn’t think he could make them out even if he was closer.

The sound of overgrown claws sliding against the rough stone floor grates furiously on Yuuri’s ears and nerves. With every second it grows closer to the top of the stairwell Yuuri is hiding in. Strange, wet snuffling sounds accompany the footsteps. The creature is sniffing him out. 

There’s no torch in his grip anymore, but his palms are still sweaty. Can it smell that? Yuuri doesn’t know. He presses his free hand into his pants, lets the moisture get sucked away a little. Time to slip away.

The truly beautiful thing about stone, Yuuri finds, is that stairs made of it don’t creak. Step after step after step he descends. He passes one landing, another set of tall oak doors, and keeps going until there are no more stairs. He’s found the dungeons. The air is dry down here.

There’s the clack of claws resonating down the stairwell behind Yuuri. Rhythmic, swift, getting closer: the creature is following. 

Yuuri lays a gentle hand on the now familiar looking door handle, pressing his weight into it slowly so it turns without a grinding metallic noise. (Please, Phichit, don’t let these doors creak.) 

The door opens noiselessly. 

Yuuri starts to smile in relief, ever so grateful, and then something large and fuzzy collides with his back and he falls through the door with a scream. 

His face collides with the floor in unison with his chest, cheek hitting something that feels awfully like the plush green growth of a moss clump, breath wheezing out of him pathetically. A weight covers his back with talons digging into his skin through his vest and cloak, heavy breathing puffing hot over Yuuri’s ear. The clatter of his glasses somehow manages to reach his ears from a few feet away. Pain flickers up through his limbs, his knees bruised and ribs pulsing dully with a stinging, sharp ache. Yuuri tries to sit up, fueled with terror and reckless energy, but the paws pressing into his shoulders and lower back keep him pinned firmly against the cold, sapping stone of the dungeon floor.

A moist, slobbery tongue drags and burns over his exposed ear. 

Yuuri screeches in horror, managing to find new strength and pushing up decisively despite the weight. He flips his hips and his shoulders follow, the creature forced off him. 

Scrambling to straighten up, Yuuri grabs for his glasses, barely registering the hallway around him. There’s no fantastic art on the walls down here. Only smooth gray bricks lining the corridor. The creature he knocked off his back is a quadruped, relatively small and fuzzy, and stares back at him with hurt eyes when Yuuri looks over. 

“Huh? A dog?” Yuuri squeaks, humiliation immediately washing over him. The poodle wags its tail happily and seems to sparkle joy at Yuuri. Undeterred by Yuuri’s prior screaming, the poodle wanders closer again, nuzzling at Yuuri’s face and snuggling up to his chest. “What’s a dog doing in here?”

The poodle has no answer for him. Robotically, Yuuri drags a hand through its fur to pacify it, in a motion he’s done so many times before with Vicchan. The dog offers him kisses and affection in return. He ends up sitting on the overgrown, mossy dungeon floor for several more minutes, so very confused. He lets the poodle crawl all over him, distract him, feels some of his panic calm. 

Deep breaths. Pet the soft dog. Accept its love. All manageable things.

“How can you possibly be here?” he questions the poodle when his heart rate is slow and steady once more. It wags its tail at him. “This castle’s been lost to magic for seven years. There’s no way you’ve survived on your own.”

The poodle pants happily at him, delighted to be spoken to and patted. Yuuri’s heart is melting over this dog already. Heaving himself to his feet, Yuuri stares down the corridor he’s in, unsurprised to find another long, simple hallway. Carefully testing his face’s ability to still perform the action, Yuuri smiles shakily down at the dog. It radiates joy and delight up at him, dancing on its paws in excitement. 

“Uh,” Yuuri says to the dog, who is bubbling over with eagerness and energy, “Okay, lead the way?”

He has so many questions. What was that creature upstairs? If it wasn’t a magical beast and it picked up Yuuri’s torch, does that mean it was a human? How can a human and a dog have survived alone in this castle for seven years? Who painted the walls?

Yuuri’s mind buzzes with curiosity. His heart rate flickers with fear. The moss beneath his boots quiets his steps and the poodle trots ahead cheerfully. It’s quiet.

He keeps glancing backwards, waiting for the other being they left behind to creep up behind him. Yuuri’s trick won’t keep it away forever.

All he sees is an empty, dark hall.

(The walls down here are bare.)

* * *

Viktor hasn’t been to the second floor in a long time. (He thinks.) 

His bare feet still remember the paths he used to track, the trails he used to trace when he spent his days working over the walls and ceilings with colour and brush. The ballroom and the kitchens, the playrooms and the pantry. Paint and murals cover the walls, reminders of things left behind outside, things that are as clear in his mind now as they were when he painted them. Everything from outside is so vivid, in his head.

Yet some of the paintings just plain don’t make sense and he can’t remember for the life of him what was going through his head when he painted them. What were the feathers even from? Were they supposed to be a part of the snowdrift? What’s the symbolism of a snowdrift made of feathers? Viktor grimaces as he traces a pale, silky feather on the backdrop of murky blood red. Almost grateful no one will ever see the mural but Makkachin and him. 

Almost.

The curse that keeps him here never really stifled Viktor (he likes to think). He keeps moving, keeps thinking and breathing and being. He practices swordplay, chases Makkachin, paints until his hands shake too much to keep going. Dances like there’s a perfect partner in his arms (usually, there is- Makkachin has good balance on his hind legs) and a ballroom full of people to seduce. 

Viktor does his best to act like there will be a door open to the outside when he wakes up tomorrow. Like there’s a grand rescue on it’s way. 

He’s good at holding onto his hopes, but bad at holding onto his dog apparently.

“Makkachin?” he calls down the corridor, pulling away from the snow… feathers... (sneathers) painting on the wall to cup his mouth. Viktor is absolutely certain his poodle was right beside him a moment ago. They were… chasing something? “Makkaaaaaaa, where did you go?”

There’s no reassuring bark, no clattering of claws against marble to race to Viktor’s side. The torch in his hand sputters weakly. It’s kind of useless. Viktor can see more without it. He holds onto it anyways, a little unsure where he’d even put it down without lighting something on fire.

“Makkachiiiin!” Viktor calls again, definitely not pouting by this point, dragging his feet pathetically against the cold stone floor. The bottoms of his feet are grimy with dirt not five steps later. “It’s too late for this, Makkachin! If you don’t turn up soon I’m going to sleep without you!”

He doesn’t actually know what time it is, but he knows he’s exhausted. Why is he even still awake? Viktor can’t really remember what he was doing upstairs. For that matter, why is he downstairs? And where did Makkachin go? 

“Did you get trapped behind a door again?” Viktor yells out accusingly and quite rudely, Makkachin doesn’t respond. Probably because Viktor’s wandered into the ballroom, the largest room in the castle. It is amazingly good at trapping sound. The windows laid into the northwest wall reveal a sky at dawn, indigo and navy fading away into a dusty periwinkle as the sun climbs up lazily from beyond the tangled forests and shadowy mountains in the east. It’s a nice enough view from here, lacking in an actual sun but offering gorgeous star-swept skies. Viktor usually gets to see it after waking up in the mornings, not because he’s stayed up all night. 

Why did he stay up all night again?

He was probably painting (he thinks). No progress has been made on any of the murals on the third floor recently though. The moon was the last thing that needed to be finished in the hallway, Viktor recalls. If he can find his silver paint it’ll be gorgeous, cratered and full of wonder to look at. Where did he keep the silver paint? 

He can look for it later, can paint later. Makkachin is more important now!

Viktor should leave the golden gala behind, forget the parties that have been held here and turn his back on the dawn sky. Makkachin obviously isn’t here.

He turns on his heel to do just that, blinks a few times, and squints a little at the torch gripped firmly in his hand. When did he get a torch? There aren’t any torches in this castle. Viktor can remember that, absolutely and clearly. All memories from before his entrapment are as pristine and undamaged as crystal. 

The curse is laying a dense, blurring fog over his head (he thinks). Nothing is exciting anymore. Nothing is new. In the past couple years his deteriorating and failing memory banks have been falling apart in waves and waves, and Viktor spends the time in between months of forgetfulness sleeping more often than not. Wandering the castle in a daze. He probably does a lot of that in the lost and forgotten months, too. 

It’s hard to tell. The gaping holes of his past sort of fade into the concrete memories, the darkness and mist diffusing into every seam and crack of the time he’s spent in this castle. 

Painting is his escape from that.

Viktor looks over the golden walls, feeling more like a passing visitor to a gallery than the artist of the images residing there.

Soaring, sparkling pink skies and clouds like puffs of cream on a cake; radiant rainbows and ephemeral bubbles and vibrancy bursting out of every detail. Magical creatures he studied in the libraries as a child have found their way into his backgrounds. A chimera settled in at the top of a misty mountain, sleeping with one eye open. A glimmering silver unicorn half hidden in the tall oak trees of a sunlight-filled, fae-ridden forest. An emerald dragon, unafraid and challenging, each minute scale painstakingly painted with the utmost care. Viktor doesn’t know how long he spent on each precise highlight, on every shadow and blend of colours. 

Quite frankly, Viktor doesn’t remember the dragon at all.

It must have taken days. He must have been proud of it.

Dancing was an escape too. Viktor would comb his hair back into a braid, find one of his mother’s old dresses and twirl and spin until the fabrics stopped being satisfying to twist about (they never really did). Makkachin would let Viktor laugh and lead him in a salsa, a waltz, wherever his feet felt like taking him. They’d promenade about quite informally, music coming solely from Viktor’s memories and the rhythmic beat of their feet against the marble.

The evidence of his painting is etched into the landscape of the castle, each stroke and line apparent to Viktor even when his mind fails to provide him the story behind each mural and mosaic. Evidence left behind by dance isn’t obvious like that. The results of his constant practice are scrawled into the lines of his body, the grace to his movements when he steps and twirls and glides, the calluses on the bottoms of his feet. 

He used to ice skate. That was far more fun than dancing to him. There was an element of danger to it, slipping on bladed shoes to slide across a frozen lake. Everything was breakable in ice skating. The shoes. The pond. Viktor himself. 

He sighs, mourning the loss of winter in his life, and for a moment, imagines his breath puffs out in a cloud of mist. Imagines his nose burns red and the air around him is crisp and clear. Imagines chill winds and frosted grass in the courtyard and problems with the castle plumbing system that take hours to fix. 

Viktor misses hot chocolate and marshmallows, the sting of his hands as the warmth of the kitchen brought them back to life from the numbness caused by the outside. Misses the sight of a fresh blanket of snow. Misses fractal patterns forming over his bedroom window during the night and tracing them mindlessly in the empty, drowsy minutes of morning before a maid knocked on his door to bring him breakfast. Misses the way Yuri’s face lit up when the lake froze over.

(Maybe he’d just painted the snow because he likes snow.)

It’s always spring here, newly flowering buds reaching for a sun that struts across the sky in the same manner, same timeframe as always. Lilacs at dawn. Crocuses at dusk. Indigo, violet, periwinkle, cerulean, every colour in between. Viktor loves spring too, why wouldn’t he? It’s constantly growing and gloriously fresh to take in. Spring is a breath of warmth after the harsh winters of Russia, it’s camomile blooms flourishing in the greenhouse and floral scents better than any confection the kitchen could ever make, it’s a cool breeze rolling off the ocean at the beach that tousles his saltwater-caked hair. Spring is new life and Viktor loves new things. 

(But still, he misses winter, and sometimes...)

Sometimes, Viktor looks out the window over the softly diffusing glow of the golden evening sun, and he wishes desperately that it would rain for a day. Makkachin used to love the rain, always rushing around in the flower gardens and ruining his beautifully brushed fur in mud. Yuri would get so angry at Viktor’s poodle for tracking in dirt, bragging about how his darling cat would never do anything so disgusting. Viktor liked to shove mud in his face when Yuri prattled on about things like that. He misses the look the kid always had on his face right before he got a mud pie. Never saw it coming somehow, not even once. 

How old is Yuri now? Viktor thinks his half-brother was nine when the castle was first cursed, but he isn’t sure. Sixteen? Seventeen? 

How many years has it been?

Viktor misses a lot of things, stuck in here. Winters, rain, frozen ponds, and mud pies. Piping hot cookies and the distant sound of chatter from the gossiping maids. Adventure and romance and dancing. All he has left of his old life that’s solid, that’s concrete, is Makkachin. 

Where is Makkachin, again?

“Makkachin?” Viktor yells, except he’s in the practically soundproof ballroom and has been staring at the lightening sky visible through the windows for a minute without moving. Of course Makkachin doesn’t hear him. 

Viktor needs to find his dog, so he leaves. Weak sunlight is starting to filter through the eastern side of the castle, the torch in his hand becoming more and more useless by the moment. Is there a wall sconce somewhere he could leave this? He must have picked it up from somewhere. In theory there is a place he can put it down.

The red corridor with the sneathered walls leads him directly to a lineup of well kept guest bedrooms, and Viktor has to stop just for a humongous yawn no less than three times. Maybe he can find Makkachin after a nap. More likely, Makkachin will just be there when Viktor wakes up, as magical as that dog is. 

Opening the door to a random bedroom, Viktor is about to toss himself on the queen size bed flippantly when he remembers the torch he’s holding. (Can burn things if forgotten about.)

Considering it, Viktor blinks blearily at the bright flare, entirely unable to focus on the problem. It’s too late… early… he’s too tired for this. 

Picking up a corner of the pristine white goose down duvet, Viktor bunches it over his hand, forms a fist, then shoves the duvet entirely over the weakening flame. Its smothered in a moment, the duvet coming back with scorch marks and ash stains. Viktor doesn’t mind. (It’ll be fixed by tomorrow because of the curse anyways.)

Chucking the torch into a random corner, he collapses on the mattress face-first, drowsiness washing over his mind and breathing deepening instantly. Oddly, his feet kind of hurt. Was he running earlier? Maybe he was chasing Makkachin. Stretching out his hands blindly, Viktor tries to seek out the ball of fluff and warmth in the blankets, but the poodle is gone and he is alone.

“...Makkachin?” Viktor mumbles, opening one protesting eye, unaware he had ever let his lids snap shut. Where did his dog go?

Unwilling to deal with this in his state of exhaustion, Viktor caves into the draw of sleep, its seductive lure on his mind. Everything else can be dealt with later. His dog, dancing, painting...

What about the torch in his hand again? Where’s a wall sconce?

A quick glance reveals that he’s put the torch out and nothing is burning. The flame had been weak; it was probably almost put out by Viktor’s mad dash to chase after the stranger in the castle earlier. 

...Stranger in the castle?

That’s new.

Viktor peacefully slips away into a deep slumber atop the duvet, wondering about the mysterious fae-like human who’d turned up before him, a beautiful being he’d probably thought up in one of his wildest dreams. He’d had windswept black hair, painted with the darkest of oils, and maybe if Viktor had looked closer he could have seen the rainbow patterns that always spill through even the darkest of the liquid. Pale skin, dirtied by travel, scuff marks apparent everywhere on his visible skin. Tiny nicks and bumps and bruises that accumulate in the enchanted forest like bug bites accumulate in regular forests. Plain clothes, sturdy boots, no weapon. The stranger had been too far away for Viktor to possibly make out the colour of his eyes, but they’d been wide and scared. Dark eyelashes had fluttered against the man’s cheeks, only visible because of their length. Viktor had only seen him for a few moments, but they had been breathtaking, magical, stunning moments. The kind of moments that changed a life.

(He’d been ethereal, in the torchlight.)

Torchlight?

When did Viktor have a torch?

* * *

For a castle bursting with such opulence above ground, there’s very little that’s redeeming about the dungeons. There’s no variation in the moss-worn stone walls and floors. No paintings that cover the walls. No decorations at all. There are barely any prison cells and the few that Yuuri does find are empty and bare. The corners hold a perplexing lack of cobwebs or mouse droppings. The scent of vanilla hangs oddly in the air. 

The poodle that chased him downstairs is quite content to either trot ahead or follow at Yuuri’s heel- it became obvious immediately that the dog didn’t actually intend to lead Yuuri anywhere but in circles. Not everything can be magical, after all. Sometimes an excited dog is just an excited dog. (Yuuri loves him anyways).

No torch, no weapon, no clue where he’s going or what’s happening. Yuuri rubs the heels of his hands over his closed eyes, the ridges of his glasses pressing into his forehead. The lack of sleep is starting to drag at him. His shoes are scuffing at the floor, kicking up dust into the still, stale air. Air that hasn’t moved or been breathed in for years. 

Before, Yuuri would have said with certainty that it’s been seven years since this air has been breathed in. Now he isn’t sure.

Veins of worry run through his body, interwoven with his muscles and nerves like blood. Beating with a pulse fueled by his mind, not his heart. Yuuri doesn’t even understand the feelings that claw up inside him sometimes, but he does know that right now the tight thread of dread coiled up in his stomach is working itself up into a knot. No amount of mindless walking or deep breathing seems to be calming it. 

He’s starting to worry that this is another hoax quest and there is no treasure in the castle. With the rush and terror of the monster Yuuri honestly forgot about his original goal for a while. But the more he thinks about it, the less sense it makes. Why would such a grand kingdom not take their treasure with them? So much money lost that could be used to rebuild, to bolster the might of the kingdom- it just doesn’t match up with the grand, luxurious image of Russia that Yuuri knows. 

The poodle starts to whine and Yuuri snaps his head upright. He hadn’t even realized he’d fallen back into his bad habit of staring at the floor while lost in thought. Princes aren’t supposed to lose posture like that. 

The dog is scratching at a plain wooden door so subtle in its announcement of its presence that Yuuri wouldn’t have even noticed it at all if the dog hadn’t pointed it out to him. It’s tucked away into the side of the stone hallway, across from another identical door. The doors are wreathed in shadow and gloom, practically indistinguishable from the grey, murky surroundings. Yuuri misses his torch. 

Far from the ornate silver handles of the stairwell doors upstairs, the wooden doors lack handles at all and the one that the poodle is scratching at opens at the gentlest touch. It swings inwards on old, unoiled hinges and creaking echoes down the otherwise silent corridor. The doors bangs into the interior wall loudly, then all movement stops. Yuuri blinks once, squints through the dark into the room, bites his lip and gulps down his nervousness. The poodle dances happily on its front feet. 

He steps inside.

The room is tiny, but fuller in character and furniture than any other room Yuuri’s seen so far. Cupboards and cabinets line the left and right walls to the point of the stone being barely visible. Tall counters that look like prep stations out of any kitchen hold stains and smells that don’t resemble any food he knows. Bioluminescent violets and magenta moss and unnatural flower blooms blossom out of the far wall, and the stone bricks seem to strain to hold all the mess. Glowing white spores from the plants float around the air like pale fireflies, drifting carelessly out into the main hallway the moment Yuuri opens the door. He quickly covers his mouth with his hand to stop himself from breathing any in by accident. Never know what could be dangerous in a place like this. Tucked in the back of the room, almost like an afterthought, are a couple of lumpy mattresses, lacking even any bedframe to offer them some dignity. A single blue blanket is crumpled up atop the bed. Magenta moss has begun to creep over it in odd patches. 

The taste of mint and vanilla explodes in his mouth and the soft, chilling sound of a distant violin playing a single note rolls through his ears as if on a stray and sweeping wind. Visions of cooing doves and roaring waterfalls pass before his eyes, but only in his peripherals, like something half-remembered in a dream. The dread in his stomach unfurls for just a moment, replaced by a dull aching thud in his chest. Yuuri feels hollow suddenly.

Then the assault on his senses is gone and Yuuri is left to stagger into the nearest wall, barely managing to slow his descent at all as his knees give out. 

The knot of anxiety is back, the aching tiredness of his legs and brain is back, the monotonous stone walls are back. The poodle is immediately concerned and climbs into Yuuri’s lap, throwing itself over him and licking his face until he has no choice but to laugh weakly and push the dog’s slobbery tongue away. It still smells like vanilla. But even more so like gross dog breath. 

(Yuuri only continues to love this dog more.)

He allows himself a minute on the floor petting the dog, and then another, because the poodle deserves all the affection in the world. He ignores the room completely. Gives all his attention to the dog. Tries to stop feeling lightheaded. Does his best to regain his calm, to get back to a normal heart rate. Finally, Yuuri stands again, grateful that most of the bright spores within the room have already seeped out of the open doorway. He can breathe without worry, hopefully. 

Licking his lip a little, wincing a bit at the bloody wound he’d left there earlier, Yuuri heads back into the room. There’s no flurry of sensations, no craze of feelings. It was just a bit of magic, trapped within the room when the entirety of the castle’s occupants up and left. Yuuri had released it, used it up, yet the room is still buzzing with old magic. He can taste it in the mint on his tongue, the goosebumps on his arms.

The poodle led him to a witch’s workroom. 

Yuuri would love to turn on his heel and forget he ever saw the place. He doesn’t like to poke through other people’s business, doesn’t like the thought of them finding out he saw something he wasn’t supposed to see. Doesn’t want to make anyone upset with him. Especially a witch. But this place has obviously been abandoned long ago. So very long ago. Possibly longer than seven years, actually, Yuuri wonders as he takes another careful step into the room and looks around at the cabinets. All of the ingredients in them- herbs and magical components pulled from the surrounding magical forest- have long gone dead. They’re withered and tired, drained of water and light. Different from the flourishing lit flowers forcing their way to survival through the stones. 

What are still as fresh as the day they were made and vibrant with a brand of power that makes Yuuri recoil a little are potions. The cabinet farthest from the workstations- the one closest to the bed- holds row after row of capped bottles and vials. Some tinctures are the colour and transparency of water, clear and still like polished mirrors, reflective and unassuming. Some concoctions seem about to boil over at any moment, then suddenly restrain themselves again, as if resetting. Each potion is carefully labeled with messy but elegant handwriting. Yuuri reads the tags in wonder, curious at how different witchcraft is here in Russia compared to Minako’s charms and hexes in Japan. 

Most of the potions seem relatively useless. A pink, heart-shaped container reads ‘magic fabric softener’. A tall, thin black bottle that feels lighter than it should in Yuuri’s palm- like it’s almost used up- says ‘magic hair gel’. A vial holding a viscous golden liquid reads ‘for magic bad luck’. It seems almost as if the potion creator shoved the word ‘magic’ before any other phrase they felt like. 

(However..)

However, there are a collection of potions on the uppermost shelf that are clearly the prized works. They don’t have clear indicators of what they do, their names vague at best. A spherical sculpted hematite container rests on a black satin pillow, blood red cork stopping it up. Yuuri doesn’t dare touch it for fear of triggering a hex or jinx, but can tell from eyesight alone that clear quartz crystals are embedded into the hematite. An odd combination of stones, but a beautiful one. The tag reads in slanted cursive: ‘Eros’. Immediately beside it, the tallest container of the cabinet sits, formed of gorgeous, glimmering opal. Even in the dark, it's clearly white before Yuuri’s eyes, like a massive floodlight is pointed directly at its slender neck. The scent of vanilla is almost overpowering here; there is no way it's coming from anything but the opal potion. Silver string is laced around it’s neck, complete with a tag that reads: ‘Agape’. 

Compared to the empty beaker labelled ‘magic oxygen’, these potions are overflowing with power and influence. Yuuri can feel his skin crawl in their presence, can feel his brain slow to an almost standstill. Emotions fade away. Everywhere tingles all at once. It’s sort of pleasant. Why would anyone leave these behind? Spots beside the two potions are obviously empty- these weren’t the only powerful potions the witch who’d lived here brewed, they were just the only two left behind. 

The only two left behind. 

Yuuri looks at the poodle. Thinks of the two headed creature he thought he saw in the shadows upstairs. The stunning, lonely paintings on the walls. An unfinished moon that must have taken five minutes on the third floor. An emerald dragon that took days in the ballroom. 

(Thinks of a dinner party when he was very, very young, and a boy he’d met there and never seen again.)

Yuuri sucks in a breath, sharp and quick, then pulls back his hand from the potions cabinet and spins on his heel. The person who’d painted the paintings must still be inside the castle. They simply must. Someone creative, with talent, who wouldn’t let being trapped inside stop them from expressing themselves. Someone who got left behind, and was never heard from again. 

He barrels through dungeon paths that he’d barely noticed before and notices even less of now, the dog at his side running along easily with floppy ears and a big, cheesy grin. (A very, very good dog.) Yuuri passes prison cells, flittering white spores, clumps of flowering pink weeds that have long since earned their place in this castle through the simple tenacity of forcing their way through the stone brick walls. 

Oak doors are thrown open and Yuuri follows the stairs and brambles leading him upwards. Thorns and stingers line the walls in this half of the stairwell, but he’s almost comforted to see them again. He knows who the painter is. (He wants to believe he knows.) 

The fleeting chance that it’s not Viktor crosses his mind. It might not be Viktor and Yuuri almost crashes to a halt. He could be running to his doom, drawing conclusions where there are none. 

But the poodle. Yuuri knows Viktor adores poodles. It’s one of the things little eight year old Yuuri had absolutely remembered from the dinner party, the lilt and happiness in Viktor’s voice as he carried on and on about the magic of their fluff and warmth of their affection. Viktor, as little as Yuuri knows him, is not the kind of person to leave his pets behind. If not for Viktor’s talk of poodles, Yuuri may have never gotten Vicchan, too. 

Powerful potions left behind, huge sums of money left behind, and precious pet poodles left behind. The castle of Russia was abandoned quickly and not so thoroughly. Yuuri doesn’t doubt that Viktor, seven years ago, just 20 years old, would dive back into this castle for his pet dog. Throwing his future away. Giving up the throne to Yuri Plisetsky. Prepared for the consequences. 

So Yuuri keeps running. 

He flings himself through the door on the second floor, breathing in fresher and warmer air. The sun’s risen while he was below ground. There are beams of marigold yellow light brushing over the floors and walls, washing over every speck of dust hovering in the air, streaming through windows and past curtains. The poodle takes off, barking just once as if to call for Yuuri to follow him. (Yuuri does, ready to trust the dog with his life.) Leads him to an open doorway, a plain guest room, an occupied bed. 

A face from the past. 

And Yuuri’s memories, as idolized as they are, do not do Viktor Nikiforov justice. 

The lost prince of Russia is stretched out across the mattress, splayed so carefreely and lazily that Yuuri thinks he must have passed out and just happened to fall on a bed while he did so. Not even under the ash-stained covers. Long, perfect, elegant eyelashes that seem dusted with starlight, pale as they are. Thin, pretty pink lips, looking oddly glossed in the dapples of sunlight from the room’s only window. Hair that seems to be borne of the moon and night sky, painted in silver as if to ensure its worth, too long to measure, too sleek and silky to be real. Strands fall everywhere, draped like cobwebs around the bed and curled over Viktor and pulled under the soles of Yuuri’s shoes. In corners, in the doorway, tangled under Viktor’s head. It’s a really, really preposterous amount of hair. Yuuri doesn’t think he’s cut it since he saw the prince last. 

The poodle throws himself onto the mattress, sniffing over his companion once to make sure the man isn’t dead, then curling up by his side. Viktor doesn’t stir an inch. He’s wearing a plain green shift and slightly loose grey cotton pants. It’s not a lot, considering the general cold of the castle. Considering who Viktor is. 

Not that Yuuri would say he knows anything about who Viktor is beyond that one night while they were children. Yuuri would be lost in the company of a Viktor Nikiforov who’d stayed out in the world for the last seven years, would be lost in the company of a Viktor Nikiforov who was still twelve years old, really. As much as Yuuri treasures those memories of the golden ballroom, it was just a single night. 

A single night, out of hundreds, that Viktor surely doesn’t remember anymore. If it’s fragmented and stilted for Yuuri, who tried his hardest to hold onto every detail, it must be completely gone for Viktor. It’s not like an eight-year old Yuuri would have been particularly charming. 

It’s not like a twenty-three-year old Yuuri would have been any more charming either. 

The only reason that night had been so wonderful was because of Viktor, because of the carefree dancing and imagined magic and whimsical cheer. Because of Viktor, who loves his poodle and completed his quest at age sixteen and was the perfect heir for the Russian throne. Yuuri hadn’t done a thing to even thank Viktor for taking care of him that night, had barely said a thing at all according to his memory. Yuuri, who still hasn’t finished his quest and can’t stop obsessing over it, who abandoned his dog and wasn’t there when it mattered, who runs from his homeland at every chance he gets. 

There’s not really a comparison between them at all. 

Viktor might be wearing the clothes of a commoner now, but he was, and is, far more of a prince than Yuuri will ever be.

(Yuuri thinks he might have preferred dealing with a monstrous beast, after all.) 

He turns to leave. This quest is over for Yuuri. Yuri Plisetsky was right about this quest belonging to him. Who would be more perfectly destined to find the lost prince of Russia than his half brother? 

The strands of hair under his shoe pull sharply as he backs away from the doorway to the room, and while Viktor doesn’t react, the poodle does. The soft, affectionate, perfect dog jumps up with concern as Yuuri watches in horror, landing with his heavy paws directly on Viktor’s stomach. It’s a hard, harsh blow.

Viktor’s eyes fly open and he gasps in a breath to try and regain the wind the poodle knocked out of him. Yuuri turns stiff where he stands, hoping not to draw attention by standing still. Ultimately futile, but maybe some small part of him still hopes the scene before his eyes will simply go away if he wishes hard enough. 

“Makkachin! Bad dog!” Viktor scolds, clutching his stomach and wheezing a little. His hair tumbling down his shoulders and back like waterfalls of molten moonlight. Yuuri is still convinced the man must have some faerie blood in him, to be that gorgeous. “I was sleeping!”

Makkachin doesn’t seem to care much, only shoving his head into Viktor’s face and wagging his tail with delight. Viktor begrudgingly succumbs to the huge dark puppy eyes, doling out hugs and pets for his dog like affection is going out of style. Yuuri watches in wonderment as the prince lets Makkachin climb onto his chest, lick his face and whine. 

There’s a moment of laughter and joy between the two on the bed and Yuuri watches from the doorway, starting to feel more awkward than scared.

Then Viktor glances up. 

Their eyes meet. 

“Uh!” Yuuri squeaks out immediately as Viktor’s jaw drops. Blood rushes to his face, lighting him up like a bright flame under the prince’s gaze. Yuuri doesn’t know what to say, what to do, feeling his feet itch with the need to run away again. Viktor doesn’t say anything, practically frozen on the bed, Makkachin clutched contentedly in his arms. There’s a beat of silence between them that whirls around into tension immediately, tension that makes Yuuri’s muscles tighten and lock, tension that makes his mouth run without thinking. “S-Sorry, this must be the wrong room? I’ll just, get going-”

“No, wait!” Viktor yells, tumbling out of bed in a scramble of sheets and uncoordinated hands, landing on his knees on the floor. He gathers his feet under him just enough to leap forward and grab Yuuri’s wrist- preventing him from moving at all. Viktor’s hand on his arm is locked in a grip of iron: searing, strong, and unbreakable. Bright blue eyes turn upwards at him and Viktor speaks to him from the floor. Uncaring of dignity or prestige. Completely without control. “You’re the boy I saw! Who are you?”

“Y-Yuuri Katsuki, prince of Japan and heir to the throne,” he stumbles out, the practiced introduction sounding flimsy and pointless in the situation they’re in. This is the greeting Yuuri would give to a prince, but Viktor isn’t following any style of practiced court manners that he knows. He tries to shift his arm a little, so that Viktor will loosen his grip, but the fingers clasped around his skin don’t move at all. 

Yuuri tries to take a step back. Can’t. Viktor is latching onto his arm like… like he hasn’t held onto anyone, been touched by anyone in seven years. There’s desperation in that grip, in those stunning sapphire eyes.

(His arm starts to hurt, but he stops trying to get loose.) 

“You’re… Viktor, right?” Yuuri asks, already knowing the answer. Starting to feel like he might actually know a lot more about the situation they’re in than the man before him. “Heir of the Russian throne?”

The question seems to shake Viktor completely, makes the hand on Yuuri’s arm lax and Viktor’s eyes glaze over a little. Like he’s remembering something far, far away, that he’s forgotten for a long time. 

Viktor stands up. It’s a dramatic process, as the hair strewn in loops and waves around the room rises with him, pulling up from the floor and bed to meet Viktor’s back. It puddles around Viktor’s feet, long enough to drag and be a hassle. The hand falls away from Yuuri’s wrist, but keeps hovering uneasily. 

“Yes! That’s me.” Viktor smiles at Yuuri, now looking down at him rather than up, and the happiness in that smile feels fake. It feels practiced, forced, a weapon or a formality rather than something genuine. Yuuri recognizes an expression like that- has seen it on his own face so many times. It’s the abrupt remembrance of how a prince is supposed to be. Polite, regal, kind, brave, honest and loyal and determined.

(Supposed to be _perfect_.)

Another beat of silence. Yuuri doesn’t know what to say.

“I’d be shocked if I was still the Russian heir, though? Shouldn’t Yura have stepped in to fill my shoes?” Viktor asks, somehow able to shake off the awkwardness and making it look easy. 

“Yura? You mean Yuri Plisetsky?” he says, casting his mind back to the boy he’d all but abandoned outside. Feels shame shiver up his spine, feels the lack of weight where his sword should be at his hip, hears the slip of warmth and love in Viktor’s voice when he’d said the boy’s name. Can’t look at Viktor when he speaks, stares at the floor instead. “...Yes, he’s replaced you as heir.”

“Good for him! How old is he now?” Viktor asks eagerly, eyes starting to sparkle with some inner delight. The prince’s smile instantly becomes a little less fake. The natural curiosity of someone trapped for seven years leaking out with barely any restraint. Yuuri should be happy to answer, probably. Yet he can’t help but feel there’s something so delicately tragic about Viktor having to ask for the age of his younger brother. He almost doesn’t want to answer. Doesn’t want Viktor to really know how many years he’s missed. 

“Sixteen.” Yuuri says. Can’t think of anything else to say as Viktor steps back, just a bit. Reels with surprise, really.

“Oh. That’s… older than I expected.” 

“I… I’ve only met him once,” Yuuri says, wincing at the gaps in the truth he’s offering, “but he was very determined. And… uh, loyal to you.”

“Really? Yura cared about me?” Viktor laughs at that, looking half-starved for information about his brother despite his blasé tone. “Things have changed a lot then!”

It’s a joke, but it feels hollow and empty. Yuuri can’t laugh at it. Viktor doesn’t either. Makkachin just seems happy to have the two of them together. (What a great dog.)

There are dark circles under both of their eyes. It’s been a late night. Dust motes float aimlessly on sunbeams around the room. Scuffing sounds come from the marble floor when he shifts his shoes. 

“Are you… okay?” Yuuri asks, not sure what else to ask at this point. The man lived alone in a castle with just a dog for seven years. 

What does that even do to a person?

“Oh, I’m doing fine! How kind of you to ask,” Viktor chirps cheerfully, completely missing the point of Yuuri’s question. Almost like a music box bursting into song after it’s finished being wound up, Viktor blurs into movement all of a sudden- laughing and grabbing Yuuri’s shoulders, shaking him so hard he feels his glasses bounce on the bridge of his nose and slide down his face. “You’re real! You’re really real! Fantastic, Yuuri, you’re fantastic!”

He’s spun around and around, a whirlwind of grey hair encompassing the two of them, Viktor’s laughter fading into a huge, heart-shaped grin. Yuuri offers a twitch of the lips in return, a little uncomfortable with the close proximity still.

Makkachin finds his way in between Viktor’s legs, doing his absolute best to trip one of them up, until Viktor finally concedes the point and lets Yuuri stop spinning with him. (Neither of them are very dizzy.) 

“I only came here on a quest, it really isn’t anything special I did…” Yuuri tries, and the words come out quiet and mumbled. His eyes leap from Viktor’s face to Makkachin, watching the dog sniff at Viktor’s hand.

“A quest! How romantic. Are you here to rescue me, dear prince?” Viktor asks while pressing a finger to his lips, tone mostly teasing, but it’s flirtatious enough to make Yuuri backpedal four steps and find himself out in the hallway again. Viktor breaks out into a grin again, letting his hand drop, following Yuuri out of the bedroom undeterred. “Yuuri? Are you embarrassed?”

“No, no, that’s not it!” Yuuri chokes out under the weight of the blush on his cheeks and neck, waving his hands to punctuate his point. It sinks into him, leaving him flustered and nervous just at Viktor’s presence. It’s kind of a magnificent presence, after all. The other prince is beautiful, ethereal, flawless. He’s been that way as long as Yuuri’s known him. “Just- I was sent to find the lost treasure of Russia, but…”

“The treasure? Oh, that’s easy. It’s hidden by one of Georgi’s old magic walls in the dungeon,” Viktor says off-handedly, flippantly, like the vast sum of gold and jewellery means absolutely nothing to him. It probably doesn’t. Yuuri almost wants to tell him to stop spilling the secrets of the castle so easily. “It’s right by the…”

And Viktor stops talking. Settles his weight onto one leg, sways his hip out a bit. Frowns in confusion, mouth still hanging out a bit. Yuuri waits nervously. Viktor’s scowl intensifies and the crinkles in his forehead increase and increase until it all smooths away instantly and Viktor shrugs. “Well, we can find it if we look hard enough. It’s been awhile since I’ve been down to the dungeon! There are no windows down there, so there’s no light to see with at any point in the day. It’s really bad for painting!”

“Ah! You were the one who painted all the walls in here.” Yuuri points a finger at Viktor, kind of amazed by the man before him for reasons entirely beyond the aesthetic now. 

“It’s a hobby I picked up to fill the hours,” Viktor shrugs, both of their gazes turning to the walls of the corridor they’re standing in- red walls and white snow, sugar-dusted feathers falling like snowflakes. “Ice skating wasn’t an option anymore.”

“Oh... I’m sorry. Wait, is this like…” Yuuri wanders over to the left wall, runs his fingers over a feather reverently. “You’ve lost the ability to move freely like a bird, because you’ve lost your feathers? But what you’ve really lost is the winters and snow outside… so the feathers turn into what you’re missing.”

“Wow!” Viktor says, coming up behind Yuuri to beam down at him. “I’m amazed you understood it so quickly! That’s exactly what I was thinking coming up with this.”

(Yuuri would almost think Viktor was lying by the near amusement in his voice, but who is Yuuri to question art?)

“...Right,” Yuuri says, side-eyeing Viktor with suspicion, but letting the remark slide. “Still, what you’ve done here is amazing. That’s a lot of hard work and perseverance.”

“Truthfully, it was a labor of boredom more than anything else. With the curse keeping me here, I didn’t have a lot else to do, except…” Viktor freezes, still tapping a finger on his lips, and looks at Yuuri with huge eyes. “You’re here.”

“Um. Yes?” He looks around, down at himself, presses his hands to his stomach protectively. “I’d hope so, or else this would be a very powerful illusion spell.”

“Does this mean the curse is broken? How did you get in here?” Viktor asks, a strange measure of calm layering over his deep voice like a soft blanket. Yuuri thinks anyone else would have broken into desperation and shouting by now. Viktor acts like this is just another day for him. 

“There was a door outside, leading into the ballroom,” Yuuri responds, trying to force the same level of casualness into his voice and failing utterly. The trace of squeakiness remaining in his voice makes his neck flush even pinker with embarrassment. “We could go through it and head outside right now.”

Viktor stares at him, a dazed look in his eyes. His eyelashes are as pale as his hair. They look like fragments of snowflakes and frost on Viktor’s skin. Yuuri waits. The silence in the castle is opaque and unbreakable- there are no gusts of wind, no crackling fires, no trickles of water in the distance. It’s been hanging oppressively around Yuuri’s head the entire time here, but with someone around to help him break the silence, it feels that much stronger now. 

Makkachin licks Viktor’s hand reassuringly. Yuuri thinks he can see it shaking a little. 

“Viktor?” Yuuri asks cautiously. “Are you… really okay?”

A muscle tightens in Viktor’s jaw and he still doesn’t say a thing. But his hand tentatively reaches out to grab at the sleeve of Yuuri’s shirt. Like a child searching for comfort, unsure of their actions. Or perhaps like Viktor’s afraid that if he doesn’t keep a hand on Yuuri at all times, he’ll disappear. 

Yuuri takes a deep breath and smiles gently at Viktor. (Who still looks massively confused by the situation around him.)

“Let’s go to the doorway. Yuri is waiting for us out there,” Yuuri says. Bites his bloody lip. Feels his neck burn hotter than the flames that were in Yuri Plisetsky’s eyes. Lets Viktor’s hand slide down his wrist, loosely slips his fingers in between other fingers. One palm is sweaty, one is clammy. It’s hard to tell which is which. “We can get some fresh air.”

“What season is it?” Viktor asks and this time it is absolutely desperate. Yuuri starts to walk, leading Viktor on, who stumbles on shaky feet and exhibits none of the grace that he’s shown before. There’s no eye contact anymore- Yuuri couldn’t stand it with their hands clasped together. There’s a threshold to his shame and embarrassment, after all. 

“It’s almost fall,” Yuuri says, and intends to leave it at that. Then can’t really help himself from continuing as they hurry down the hallway. “The enchanted forest surrounding this place isn’t very affected… it’s always spring there. But outside the borders of the forest here, towns are harvesting crops non-stop. The flower fae are making their distaste for the future of their flowers known by arranging them in … interesting sentences.”

“The flowers are cursing the seasons out?” Viktor asks, a strange and wonderful mix of amusement and awe in his voice. He’s stopped being dragged by Yuuri and instead is walking beside him. Steady once more, with silver hair flowing out elegantly behind him. How it doesn’t get caught on anything is beyond Yuuri. “That’s amazing. What do they say?”

“Uhm, I think I saw some daisies that said ‘Winter is for weenies and losers and anyone who supports it needs to grow the fuck up,’ but I might be getting the phrasing wrong…” Yuuri pauses at the ornate closed doors to the ballroom, prompting Viktor to pause with him. (He’d almost forgotten they were holding hands. Almost.) “Then some sunflowers that just said ‘heck off winter’. Everyone has a different story about them.”

Yuuri shrugs and Viktor laughs. Loudly and openly, to the point that Yuuri can’t help by grin back. He doesn’t really understand why Viktor’s laughing, because Yuuri isn’t a very funny or entertaining person. 

Then they reach out and open the ballroom doors. 

Look across the room. 

(And-)

“Oh,” Yuuri says quietly as Viktor’s grin crumbles to dust before his eyes like it meant nothing in the first place. “The way I got in is gone.”

Makkachin scampers in behind them, wags his tail at them, skitters about on the marble floor happily. 

Across the room from them is nothing but a painting of the sky. Very pretty. Blue and white and pleasant to the eye. 

Viktor is shaking beside him. Yuuri doesn’t dare look over and see what his face looks like, until he looks anyways despite it all. Guilt for leading Viktor on floods him instantly, drowns him in worry and concern and anxiety. “I’m so sorry Viktor, I didn’t know it would disappear, I shouldn’t have said anything without making sure that the entrance was still here-”

“Yuuri,” Viktor says, staring straight ahead through bleak, sunken eyes. Not sad. Not surprised. Nothing. Not a single syllable of Viktor’s voice wavers from its placid monotone either. “It’s okay. You didn’t know, and you only wanted to help us get out of here as soon as possible. I don’t blame you.”

Yuuri will blame himself for the look on Viktor’s face anyways. He’d told him Yuri Plisetsky was outside earlier and now they couldn’t reach the boy. Nor could the boy reach them. 

Viktor must have thought he was so close to his family again.

Yuuri tightens his grip on Viktor’s hand. Tries not to let how upset he is show on his face- if Viktor isn’t going to show he’s upset over this, then Yuuri has no right to be upset. 

“Actually,” Viktor glances over at Yuuri, voice sounding far more alive with surprise than before, “aren’t you trapped here now?”

“Oh,” Yuuri says. “I guess I am.”

The golden walls shine from the morning sun. Makkachin starts to beg them for attention. The dull pulse of panic in his head is muted and dulled from exhaustion. 

It’s been a long night.

(Maybe it's finally time to sleep.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> turns out you can just use AO3 chapter notes as like, giant confessionals?? so here's a secret: i love all of you and thank u for reading, see you next time!! 
> 
> Check me out on [tumblr](http://grassepi.tumblr.com/) <33


	3. If it smells like green tea and looks purple, it's probably not vape

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter was written in 4 days compared to the two months it took me to finish chapter 2???? idk??? anyways, please enjoy!!
> 
> PSA: halfway thru writing this i realized yurio is essentially link from legend of zelda and immediately had like an existential crisis lmao

Lilac purple mist is rolling out of the enchanted forest like the gentle waves of an unstirred sea when Yuri wakes. It blankets over a foot of ground and smells like green tea that’s been steeping for far too long. Startling upright, Yuri breaks out into a fit of coughing to try and dislodge the gross scent from his nostrils, but it’s already drenched all of his clothes and skin and he can’t breathe without inhaling some of it. He’s immediately awake, all remnants of his dreams dispersing into thin air.

“Fuckin- is this shit poisonous?” Yuri asks loudly, hoping that Katsuki will have some kind of answer for him already, but no one answers. A quick glance shows no one is around at all. The fire is out, only a pile of burnt wood left to faintly smoke, though it seems to be having a weird reaction to the purple mist; the fire is starting to reignite itself gradually. Yuri doesn’t know if he should be worried about that. Decides he doesn’t care and looks away. 

His hip and shoulder that were laying on the ground are stiff and aching, so Yuri takes a minute to stand up and stretch out, letting his bones pop into place and brushing dirt off his cloak and pants. He steps on something metal, ignores it for a good minute of self-tidying, then glances down past the mist. It’s Katsuki’s sword. The other man must be around somewhere close by to have left his only weapon behind; surely no one would be such an idiot as to wonder off around a cursed castle and monster-filled forest without a weapon. Katsuki must be alive, unless he’s such a dumbass that he practically deserves to die for his stupidity. 

Yuri doesn’t think anyone could be that dumb. Certainly not the man he’d met last night. 

Pretending the rush of relief in his heart is only because he himself has a weapon now, he snatches the double-edged blade out of the grass and holds it over his head like a trophy. “Oi! Katsuki! Where the hell are you? I have your shitty sword!”

The wind whistles across the plain and the mist on the ground swirls in odd patterns, but doesn’t react to the breeze at all. Yuri really wishes he hadn’t spent all that time breathing it in while sleeping. Wishes his clothes didn’t smell like gross tea. But wishing has never got him anything, and it only continues to fail him on this morning. Typical.

“Katsuki? Last chance! If you don’t show up soon, I’ll take it for myself!” 

The fire is fully reignited now and starting to grow larger and brighter than any natural fire ever should. Yuri continues not to care about that. The leaves nearby shake and rustle, stirred by some large, dark creature that stomps away a second later. Yuri cares a little about that, but less than he probably should given how defenceless he is. There are other things happening that are more important right now.

He lowers the sword almost reluctantly, feels the relief in his heart crumble to anger. (Anger… worry… fear.)

So the other prince has wandered off somewhere and gotten himself killed? Yuri looks at the sword in his hands for a second, then whips his head around from side to side. As if Katsuki will just be lying on the ground there and somehow not waken up from Yuri’s yelling. There’s no body, just waist-high grass and morning dew sparkling in the glow of the sun from somewhere beyond the mountains. 

“Where the… it’s not like someone can just disappear! Even if you’ve died, there must be a body somewhere! No one can be so stupid as to wander off without their weapon! Except, apparently, _you!_ Damnit, Katsuki, you’re gonna cause some kind of international scandal dying like this! People are going to think I killed you, because no one is going to believe anyone was possibly so dumb as to leave their fucking sword behind!”

The castle stands before him and Yuri starts to laugh sardonically despite himself, marching over to the nearest stone wall accusingly to yell at it. Might wheeze a little with the effort it takes to do so. “What kind of game are you playing, you piece of crap curse? Stop making princes disappear! Is this supposed to be ironic or something? Well, it’s not funny!”

Logically, he knows he’s literally yelling at a brick wall and nothing will come of it, but emotionally he cannot stop himself from rearing back his leg and kicking at the shitty cursed castle. This turns out to be a bad decision. 

A minute later, when he’s wiped at his watery eyes and doesn’t need to cradle his stubbed toe anymore, he takes a deep breath to calm himself. Ironically, the pain has cleared his head pretty well. 

Katsuki’s disappearance doesn’t matter, ultimately. What matters is what Yuri came here for- Viktor. 

He puffs out a sharp, short breath, wrinkles his nose in disgust a bit at the scent of green tea, and places a hand on the castle wall. Wonders where he can find a way in. If he’ll need to force the wall to break for him, create an entrance for himself. 

“Is your foot okay?” someone asks from behind him, but Yuri’s already throwing Katsuki’s sword up and feeling magic start to boil in his veins, his fae blood sparking with his agitation, ready to fight. The horse the stranger is riding on whinnies in fear, rears back and lashes out with its hooves. It’s all Yuri can do to dive to the side and dodge the flailing limbs, hands coming up to protect his head, his neck, whatever’s most vulnerable. Why did it have to be a horse?!

No matter what Yuri does, animals always, always hate him. They fear him, they shy away from him, they run from him and snap at him when he gets too close. It’s the magic in his soul that keeps them away. The sparks in his eyes, the fire at his fingertips, the way his face sometimes looks more like a cat than a human. He may only be half fairy, but it’s enough. It’s unnatural. 

Even when he isn’t using magic, animals are wary of him, so to startle a horse with magic starting to bubble up in his fingertips… that was a stupid move, Yuri reflects idly as the horse finally lands back on the ground with a magnificent thump. He doesn’t dare move again, stays crouched in fetal position on the ground, lets the strange purple mist hide him somewhat. The rider is making comforting, whispering sounds as he tries to gain back control of the beautiful black stallion. It’s not going to work. Yuri could tell him that, but he’s too afraid to get up again. 

He doesn’t want to admit that the sight of the flailing hooves had sent his heart into overdrive, doesn’t want to admit that his entire body is shaking, that fear is making tears bubble to his eyes again. Doesn’t want to admit to being weak. He can hardly concentrate enough to breath right now. The rider can deal with the horse. Yuri can sit here and recover for a moment. He’s supposed to be a prince, he should be able to handle a little brush with potential grievous injury. 

He’s still wheezing when the horse takes off, darting back towards the distant forest. Yuri’s knees hurt from pressing into the ground. Fingernails dig into the skin at the back of his neck. 

He can feel every vertebrae under his fingertips. How fragile.

“Are you okay?” the stranger asks, a hint of caution just barely discernible in the steadiness of his voice. He must had dismounted his horse before letting it run off to calm down. Yuri hadn’t even heard, too caught up in his own body’s panic reaction.

Is he… okay? 

“What do you think?” Yuri snarls, letting the rage fuel him to push himself out of the dirt, lets the rage push the thoughts in his head away until there’s nothing but yelling at this stranger. This stranger, who’s got a strong jawline and dark, swept back hair, who’s wearing sleek, black dragon-hide leather armour and a navy blue scarf. Who’s got concern resting heavy in his warm brown eyes and a frown on his lips. Who must not be much older than Yuri. “Your horse nearly killed me! You scared the shit out of me, you asshole!”

“I’m sorry, I thought you would have heard me approach. I underestimated how lost you were in your thoughts,” the man offers, incredibly genuine in the tone of his apology and as polite as possible- even offering a little bow to cement his sentiments. Yuri sniffs, shrugs, tries to pretend he isn’t blushing in embarrassment at missing the horse’s approach because of his stubbed toe. Which still aches. The stranger smiles slightly, like he can’t quite help it, and Yuri is definitely blushing now. “Do you often kick walls?”

“If they have it coming to them, yeah,” Yuri scowls as hard as he can and crosses his arms over his chest, trying to impress the hot guy even a little. He’s already prepared for laughter and mockery, everything Viktor would have offered him, but the man before him only nods seriously. Astonishingly, despite Yuri’s frail-looking stature and lack of height, the stranger is actually not laughing at him. Yuri doesn’t know what to do now. This has never happened before. 

(There’s a bonfire crackling out where Yuri was sleeping, but since the stranger isn’t acknowledging the flame that’s taller than both of them, Yuri won’t either.) 

“And this wall had it coming to it?” the stranger questions again, not sounding mocking in the least. Yuri’s starting to get skeptical. Maybe hot guy’s brand of sarcasm and amusement just comes in incredibly sincere statements and questions. That makes no sense, but it makes even less sense that he’s not laughing at Yuri. “What has it done to you?”

“It’s trapped my brother,” Yuri says with a shrugs, glances at the huge stone walls again, tightens his arms against his chest. “And broke my knife and hurt my toe.”

“I see,” the man says and stares at the wall as well. “If any a wall deserves an assailant, it must be this wall then. Those are some criminal actions.”

“Who are you?” Yuri asks, watches the flickering orange light from the growing fire nearby cast itself over the leather-clad man’s face. Flinches a little as the night black mare comes back into his peripheral vision, hovering uncertainly away from both Yuri and the fire. The flames are starting to reach into the trees and bushes nearby. “Are you here for the quest, too?”

“I am Otabek Altin, a hero for hire from Kazakhstan. It is a pleasure to meet you, Heir and Prince of Russia, Yuri Plisetsky,” Otabek declares, dropping to a knee before Yuri and bowing his head once more. It’s such an old-fashioned, traditional and deferential introduction that Yuri doesn’t remember what to do for a second. Then, shakily, he extends his free hand and Otabek brushes a kiss over the back of it. 

It’s warm. Otabek’s lips are dry. Not chapped. 

Otabek rises, looking no less proud and dignified for the moments he’d spent kneeling to Yuri, and ruins the moment entirely by continuing to speak. “I’m here to take you back to Russia.”

“That’s not happening,” Yuri states, turning on his heel to prowl away from Otabek, letting his golden hair flare out behind him dramatically. He doesn’t know where he’s going- Katsuki’s sword is still in his left hand, but he doesn’t know how to use it, and the forest is still on fire, but it’s gone far too out of control for Yuri to put it out with fire manipulation magic. The castle continues to stand, no entrances suddenly appearing, and his breathing is still quick and furious from his panic after the horse attacked him. He wishes he had time to sit and plan for a while. “I’ll be returning to Russia with my brother, or not at all.”

“I understand your feelings,” Otabek says, casually falling into step beside Yuri. He thumbs a locket on his chest and looks wistfully off into the distance for a moment. Yuri rolls his eyes, already exasperated. Otabek can look at the sky as mournfully as he likes- that doesn’t mean he knows a thing about what Yuri’s feeling. Nobody can understand that. Maybe he would have felt sorry for Otabek if he’d said and done the exact same thing _before_ mentioning he’s here to bring Yuri back to Russia. “I miss my siblings very much when I’m away from them and I’ve had to save them from many perilous situations before.”

“So all your siblings are safe and sound, then. Too bad that mine isn’t. I’m looking to fix that, so stop following me.” Yuri picks up the pace, his hands squeezing into fists. Otabek easily keeps up. Yuri can’t tell if his own harsh breathing is from the fast pace, his earlier panic, or the tumbling anger that sits in his stomach. “If you keep trying to stop me, I won’t hesitate to burn you, Otabek Altin.”

“That’s what the dragon hide armour is for,” Otabek says smartly, brushing off Yuri’s threats to himself with a careless ease that was not afforded to Yuri’s earlier threats to the wall. Bastard. “I am very sorry, Yuri Plisetsky. I wish I did not have to force you away from the person you care about.”

“Who says I care about him?” Yuri bites back, gritting his teeth and dragging his feet. Every inch of him is prickling with frustrated magical energy, desperate to explode outwards. “Viktor’s a moron. He gave up his wealth and power for a dog.”

Otabek doesn’t respond to this for a long moment, only staring straight ahead and keeping time with Yuri’s rushed pace. “I have never met Prince Viktor, but all the wealth and power in the world cannot equate to the purity of a dog. He must be a smart man.”

“Oh god, you’re a dog person,” Yuri says in the disgusted manner one might call someone a coward or a thief. He edges away from Otabek slightly, making a gagging noise in the back of his throat. “Cats are intelligent, perfect creatures, far greater than those disgusting mutts. Dogs piss on everything you own and try to steal your food! They have to be walked and let outside and then they get dirty and let the fortune spirits help you if they see a squirrel or a skunk or some shit.”

“Dogs are very loyal creatures, your highness,” Otabek says easily, barely fazed by Yuri’s rant. “They’re good for hunting and tracking, offer protection against thieves, and will play with children and herd farm animals. They’re very practical, but beyond that they’re gentle and friendly. Cats may be smarter than dogs, but they’re also more likely to wander off or lash out.”

“Ha! Cats are more likely to lash out, my ass,” he snaps back, scrambling to pull up his sleeve to reveal his forearm. The pale skin’s been marred by a circular scar that latches over the curve of his upper wrist, ripped and rough and- once upon a time- very painful. “Dogs are just another one of the dumbass group of animals that think magical creatures are out to hurt them! Gentle and friendly? Don’t be stupid, that’s how you train them to be! If they get agitated at all, all that training will go out the window! Just like your fucking horse over there!”

Otabek glances over the scar, a slight crease of worry between his brows. Suddenly overcome with embarrassment at showing off such a paltry wound without thinking about it, Yuri tucks his sleeve back down, letting his fur cloaks fall over his arm again. 

“How did you get that injury?” the hero-for-hire asks, and there’s something about the way he asks the question that makes Yuri’s heart flip in his chest, makes his teeth lock against each other and his jaw tense. “Why did the dog bite you?”

“The other children were playing with it and I wanted to pet it too. I didn’t do anything,” Yuri responds quietly. It’s the first time he’s thought about the incident in years. It was just a stupid thing he did when he didn’t know why all animals hated him so much. When he didn’t know he was half fae. When he didn’t know he was part royalty. 

That was a long time ago, now.

“I see,” Otabek says, hums a little in thought, and doesn’t say anything more. Yuri waits for the other man to ask if he’s a fairy- waits for him to recoil backwards in horror- but Otabek doesn’t say another thing for a long while. 

They reach the end of the castle wall they’ve been walking along. Yuri stops walking. The forest fire only continues to grow behind them, and the sea of purple mist swirls below. Early morning light filters over the forest before them, making it look peaceful and still. Both of them know what kind of darkness really lurks below the leaves and boughs of the trees. The horrors and wonders that can be found within. Yuri’s kind of amazed that Katsuki and Otabek actually got through unscathed. He’d skipped the entire ordeal by travelling through the realm of the fae- a place only accessible to those marked as a friend of the fae or one with fae blood. 

Katsuki’s sword hangs loose and heavy in his hand. 

“Otabek,” Yuri says, turning around to stare into Otabek’s eyes. Plain, normal eyes that are the boring yet comforting colour of dirt and of wood. Nothing like Yuri’s, which burn jade green and spit fiery sparks and glow in the dark. “I’ll say it one last, final time. I’m not going to go with you. Get lost, hero-for-hire. Nothing my country could have paid you to return me will be worth the fight I’ll give you.”

There’s a flicker of confusion in Otabek’s eyes, a tilt to his head, before he shakes his head once. “That’s not right, your highness. I’m not getting paid anything. Your country may have hired me, but I’m doing this job for free.”

“What? What kind of shitty business sense is that?” Yuri squints at Otabek, wondering if he’s stupider than first impressions led on. “If you’re going to do a job, get paid for it! Demand more than you know it’s worth and then earn your keep! Are you an idiot? A dog person, and stupid! You’re sounding more and more like Viktor!”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” Otabek bows his head a little, respectfully, then steps closer to Yuri. Carefully, he takes Yuri’s right hand in his own. Holds it delicately, like Yuri is made of china. Yuri has to look up at him when he’s standing this close. Otabek takes a deep breath, like he’s about to say something. 

Then he places an open iron cuff around Yuri’s wrist. 

It _burns._

Haunting screams echo around the clearing from everywhere at once as if the souls of the damned are trying to come back to life. The purple fog dissipates all at once like a wary fox slipping back into the shadows at the sight of a lion. The fire explodes like a bomb’s gone off, destroying a grove of trees and all the nearby grass, dark grey smoke pouring from the wound on the forest like an unending fountain of blood. 

(But all of that only happens for a moment.)

Otabek snaps the cuff shut. 

Now only Yuri’s screaming, all the echoing voices gone and done away with, only the shrill pitch of his pain left to hear. The scent of green tea hangs ominously in the air as the lilac mist starts to extend tendrils out from the forest once more- nervously, afraid of what it might find. The forest fire stops burning. Only smoke and destruction is left in the area they’d set up camp last night. The smouldering corpses of the nearby trees start to crumble to dust in the wind. 

The world swims before Yuri’s eyes, the pain emanating from his wrist sending him to his knees immediately. It’s unyielding, nauseating, and excruciating. The magic that’s always been a part of him, that warms his soul and expands in his chest, is burning him from the inside out. Like it’s trying to expel itself out of his body, but doesn’t have anywhere to go. Yuri can’t breathe, can’t speak, can’t see. 

Then, with a soft click, the shackle come off his wrist and he is free. 

“You’re a fairy,” Otabek is saying, but Yuri doesn’t care anymore what the man has to say. If he had suspected at all that Yuri was part fae, he shouldn’t have used the iron cuffs.

It only takes him a second to catch his breath this time.

The magic that had seared him, been trapped in him and repeatedly shoved down into his gut explodes out of him all at once in a burst of searing magenta flames and a blinding white light. The distant flame flares up again, the purple mist recoils, and Yuri lashes out at Otabek blindly with a whip of white light. He doesn’t look back to make sure he’s struck (he hasn’t), just flees as quickly as he can into the wilds of the forest. 

He doesn’t have wings- wishes he had wings- but it’s easy enough to summon up an illusion of him flittering away towards the top of the castle. Otabek falls for it instantly and tilts his head towards the sky, barely questioning the vision that’s been cast for him. The moment he does begin to wonder, the vision will shatter, but that doesn’t matter. 

Yuri will be far away from this cursed place by then. 

There’s a wicked black burn carved into his already scarred wrist now, yet miraculously in the miasma of pain he must not have dropped Katsuki’s sword because it’s still trailing from his hand. It’s heavy. He clutches it tighter.

Yuri refuses to admit to the tears in his eyes as he darts past the forest’s edge, which almost seems to reach for him as he crosses the last few feet. That’s only a little ominous. Most forests seem to reach for him somehow, not just the magical ones. It’s the fairy blood. 

Frankly, everything seems to be related to the fairy blood, to the point that Yuri wishes he were just entirely fairy. Maybe then he would have wings, and wouldn’t burn out of magical energy so quickly, and no one would try and put an iron shackle on him. Every fool from the fairy realm to the human realm knows that iron is like acid to a fae. That it makes their skin boil away like water in the searing sun. That while the iron works on the outside, the fairy’s own internal magic eats it away from the inside, both forces working together violently to tear the creature apart. It’s brutal. Violent. Taboo.

Killing a fairy invites only the worst kind of misfortune spirits upon a creature, the kind of misfortune that kills entire villages from sudden droughts or storms or plagues. If the murderer even survives the revenge of the misfortune spirits, they rarely can handle the havoc other fairies and magical creatures will wreak upon their lives. 

No one puts iron on a fairy. Pixie, sidhe, or another race, as rare as that is. The only reason Yuri got off with a simple burn is because he’s only half-fairy.

Otabek knew that he wasn’t human. Why else would he ask those leading questions about the fucking dog bite? Yuri doesn’t know why the supposed hero did it, but he knows it hurt like hell and he doesn’t want to be anywhere near the guy anymore. 

His feet pound against roots and moss, his run more like wild leaps from one tree to the next. Probably hanging in the air a little longer than anything natural should, probably going a little farther than anything without wings should. 

There’s no sign of a fairy ring nearby or anywhere else Yuri could find his way into the realm of the fae. His safety net. No one can follow him there. Certainly not Otabek and his stupid iron handcuffs. 

Finally, his last couple breaths begin to puff out of him and he has to stop and take a rest against a moss-coated tree. He’s winded and his wrist is stinging like a bitch, but his stamina is coming back quickly. The forest around Yuri sighs happily as he sits down, almost relaxing into him. The affinity nature has for him is incredibly creepy in his opinion. 

Glancing around, he takes in where he is: a good ways into the forest, as the castle no longer visible beyond the knitted vines and leaves and foliage above his head. The ground is grassy and covered in strange flora- ranging from wild blue mushrooms to daisies made of pure beaming light. Crystalline ferns glimmer around the base of the strangely normal-looking trees. Every emerald and jade leaf must be worth a fortune alone. An eye blinks out at him from the tree he’s leaning against, and Yuri feels his mouth fall open in horror when all the rest of the tree trunks around him also blink open thousands upon thousands of eyes. 

Every inch of bark is divided into random patterns of wide, wide eyes- some trees have spiralling eyes, some have stripes, some have eyes within an eye pattern. Yuri is faintly weirded out. Every single pupil is pointed at him. Possibly definitely weirded out. 

“What? What do you want, you sentient sticks? Should I burn you down, too?” he threatens with a slight huffing to his voice, holding up a shaking hand full of fake flame. It’s not even hot to the touch. He doesn’t have the juice left in him to conjure an actual source of heat, only the image of one. His wrist can barely handle being held up like it is, and he has to support it with his other hand to even keep it up in the air.

The trees know it isn’t real.

Yuri lets his wrist collapse downwards, the vision of a fire sputtering out, and rests his hands on his knees instead. Otabek will be after him by now. He has to keep going. Find an entrance to the realm of the fae.

Forcing himself to take a deep breath and focus properly, he draws up whatever magic he can and places a palm on the forest floor. 

The dirt hums happily beneath his shaky hand. Grass strands tickle over his skin. All of the eyes watching blink at once. As if they’re acknowledging him. The forest and Yuri are both magic, are both something ancient and wild and unforgiving. The grass starts to wrap around his burned wrist, numbing the injury and drawing out the trapped heat. It’s barely qualifiable as first aid, but the weavings of green strands around his injury are soothing and protective, keeping the pain away even if the injury remains. It’s enough for the worst of the tension to fall out of Yuri’s shoulders and mind. 

The trees will keep him safe here.

He slouches back heavily against the tree trunk behind him. Lets his magic replenish as he breathes. The very air around him seems to tingle with energy. It won’t take long to recover in a place like this. 

Not that it matters anymore if Otabek catches up to him. The forest will protect Yuri. 

The eyes on the trees close one by one. Gradually. Yuri isn’t a patient person, but the fastest way to regain his magic is through staying still, so he stays still. Besides, he has time to plan ahead now. 

Faeries are often considered a malicious, evil, vile lot, and Yuri’s had very little reason to disagree with that description in his life. In his opinion, faeries and humans are about equally gross and he doesn’t particularly want to be associated with either race. However, that’s not really all there is to the matter. While it is true that all fae are somewhat mischievous and often hold a streak of trickery in their hearts that will never die, the two sub-species of fae holds entirely different moral standards.

The Sidhe are the traditional sort of faerie that all the uninformed would think of, really. They flit about on gossamer wings and flaunt their beauty and giggle over harmless pranks they play on dumb humans. The majority of the realm of the fairies belongs to their court, with the rest belonging to the other species of fae- Pixies. Pixies are vicious, dangerous beings that pride themselves on their great magical power and dark reputation. Lacking in both wings and standards, they seem to delight in the suffering of others. Their magical ‘pranks’ go far beyond what a Sidhe would ever be comfortable with, and Pixies are scorned by humans and Sidhe alike. 

Yuri’s lucky to be born of a Sidhe mother, probably, though no human would ever tell him that. Most people think there’s no distinction between fairies, and the Sidhe are blamed for the Pixies’ misdoings.

It doesn’t actually fucking matter. Whether Yuri was born of a Sidhe or a Pixie or a shitty hobgoblin, he’d despise his mother and father for abandoning him like they did until his dying day. The only people who have ever been good to him are his grandfather and Viktor. His grandpa, who took care of him and loved him through his entire childhood when no one else would, not even his own parents. Viktor, who didn’t have to accept the crazy half-fairy boy who showed up one day claiming to be related to him, but did anyways. Viktor, who seemed delighted by his very presence, no matter what catastrophes he caused. Viktor, who laughed at him and loved him without thought or fear, who treated his magical outbursts like they were temper tantrums or roadside attractions to marvel at. 

“Fuck the iron handcuffs,” Yuri mutters under his breath, springing to his feet and turning back in the direction of the castle in a flare of energy. He yells out to no one, or possibly someone, or possibly everyone. Anyone who’s listening. “I’m here for a reason! I didn’t just run away from Russia on a whim! I’m saving Viktor Nikiforov’s useless ass and he’s gonna kiss my fucking boots in thanks!”

The woods whisper their agreement all around, leaves rustling and wind whistling through the boughs of the trees. The grass bandage around his wrist tightens.

Empowered, emboldened, full of wrath and heat and flare, Yuri conjures an illusion over himself. Smoky dark eyeshadow smears around his eyes, flickering slightly at the edges like the steady yet ever changing flame of a candle. Lipgloss suddenly shines over his lips, magenta and vivid and loud. His fur cloaks, white shirt and sturdy travelling plants go up in a burst of violet flames. Instead, a tattered black shirt falls over his chest- barely enough to cover anything, certainly not enough to keep him warm in this weather- and gleaming black leather pants smooth down his long legs to the leopard-print boots. Burnished golden bracelets and earrings and necklaces streams down his arms, over his neck, on his ears in an unending parade of wealth. 

It’s all fake.

Nothing about his appearance has actually changed. Yuri’s still standing in his fluffy cloaks and plain clothes.

Illusion magic is pretty worthless, in the end. Everything conjured fades to nothing, and never existed anywhere in the first place but the imagination. Still.

Yuri will flaunt his aesthetic if it costs him all the magic he has. 

(The leopard print makes him feel happy inside in ways that people and relationships has never given him.)

Feeling inordinately proud of himself and comfortable in his skin, Yuri raises his head high and begins to make his way back to the castle. 

“Oh my god, what are you wearing?” Mila Babicheva- Princess of the Sidhe and Heiress to the Faerie throne- asks, popping out of thin air before Yuri’s eyes like the second coming of the devil herself. She’s screeching with laughter already, her eyes watering with tears and hand clutching her stomach. It’s not a very dignified picture. Yuri would mock her for it, but it’s the second time in about twenty minutes he’s had the life scared out of him and he’s too busy trying to hold in the scream that’s trying to strangle it’s way out of his throat. After swallowing it down with difficulty, he snarls at his old friend and immediately focuses all of his agitations of the day on her. 

“You awful old hag! Don’t just show up like that, it’s a waste of magic!” Yuri yells. Mila takes in a breath, face lighting up in delight at the opportunity to point out all the magic Yuri’s wasted today already on his appearance alone, but he barrels on before she gets a chance. Crossing his arms, he raises an eyebrow judgingly at her strapless pink dress. Flawlessly formed rose petals that look softer and more delicate than silk, glimmering accents made of crystallized dewdrops, and flecks of gold embedded into the skirt that shine tauntingly in the light: the kind of dress a common fae would kill a man for. Yuri immediately hates it. “Don’t start lecturing me about appearances, anyways. Pink looks like garbage on you and always has. If you’re going to wear a rose petal dress, at least make sure it matches your hair colour first. You should try listening to me for once in your long, long, ancient life and wear leopard print and leather. It would look a lot better on you then the trash you’re wearing now.”

“You’re such a brat!” Mila jumps for him with outstretched hands and an evil cackle, but Yuri’s hyped up on adrenaline and full of magic and ducks under her reach quickly. There will be no noogie-ing today. Not on his watch. She barely tries to chase him, letting him escape from her clutches to the roots of another tree without a lot of complaint. Rather, she’s too busy giggling over his appearance to get that mad in the first place. Setting a hand on her hip and fluttering her eyelashes, Mila points a single mocking finger out at him. 

“So let me get this straight. The magic woods- a place sacred to all wild creatures and wondrous things, which holds more secrets than any mortal or immortal being could ever unravel- accepted your magic and offered to protect you. And even gave you magic! And you-” she circles her finger around in his general direction, eyeing him up and down and raising her own perfectly sculpted eyebrows at him. “-used its gift to make fake clothing and makeup?”

“Leave me alone, ugly hag.” Yuri rolls his eyes and turns away from her, continuing his journey back to the castle. “This is high class fashion. Besides, I have more important things to do than play around with you.”

“Ooh, like what?” Mila asks, already caught up to him despite his lead. Her wings are like stained glass in the morning light. Their colouring is mixed halfway between golden ochre and a vivid azure, marbling exquisitely between the two rich colours. Yuri would never admit it, but the wings fit Mila perfectly, reflecting her unnaturally blue eyes and complementing her rich red hair. Sometimes, in the shadiest places or in the thick of night, her wings look like pure lapis lazuli. Like precious stones cut thinner than a sheet of paper. 

Any rays that filter through the gossamer wings don’t look the same as before, in the tiniest of ways. Too glaring. Too bright. Prismatic and breaking before the eyes, then coming back together in millions of fragmented pieces. Twisting, looping, flowing. Yuri tries not to watch. Mila notices that he is anyways and quickly drops to the ground to walk beside him. 

Her wings fall limp on her back and Yuri sets his eyes forwards. 

“I’m going to save Viktor,” Yuri says, already tired of Mila following him around. She’s like some nagging older sister. Honestly, who ever heard of a young kid needing an annoying fairy to follow him around on his magical quest to save an estranged love one? 

“Viktor? Really?” Mila gasps and claps her hand in excitement a couple of times. The forest, air and ground seem to clap with her. The shadow trailing after her claps a second too late, creating a strange echo of the sound. Yuri just scowls and shuffles the sword he’s carrying to his other hand. It’s getting very annoying. Hopefully he’ll come across Katsuki, or at least Katsuki’s body at some point, and be able to return the blade. Mila continues to be far too excited beside him. “Oh, let me help too! I’ve missed Viktor so much! He’s so much cheerier than you!”

“No. Go away. You’re so clingy.” Yuri slouches over completely, all the hot air that had puffed him up earlier having completely left him by now. Mila is making this whole magical quest thing so _boring_. “I’m going to do this on my own! He’s my brother, not yours!”

“I feel like that wasn’t as angry as usual. Like, a lack of effort really? Overall, just lacking emphasis. Maybe a two out of ten?” Mila shrugs her glitter-dusted shoulders, inspects her perfectly manicured golden nails, and smiles imperiously down at Yuri’s bitter scowl. “So I’m gonna have to answer that with a resounding _nah_ and tag along anyways.”

“More like a hag-along,” Yuri says sourly and finds himself floating twenty feet off the ground only a moment later. Kicking out his feet at nothing and writhing in distress, it only takes Yuri a second of staring at the foliage below him and the vast blue sky around him before registering the firm grip Mila has under his knees and back. Bridal style, which is decidedly not Yuri’s style. Fucking great. “Let me go, you crazy bitch! Put me back down on the ground right now before you drop me!”

“Which one is it?” Mila asks innocently, starting to loosen her grip on Yuri and forcing him to reach up and wrap his arms tightly around her neck. “Should I… let you go? Or put you back on the ground?”

“You’re not going to drop me, so just lower me back to the ground! Let me down right now!” Yuri demands, a drop of his spit hitting Mila in the eye by pure coincidence. Without really thinking about it, she groans in disgust and lets go of his knees to reach up and wipe at her eyes. Yuri screeches and twists his body as he falls, wrapping his legs tightly around the hovering fairy like an enraged, bony koala bear. “Mila you fucking dick! Fine, fine! You can come along to help save that idiot Viktor!”

“Yay! I win!” Mila cheers, spinning in midair and making Yuri scream in fear and panic as she lets go of him with the other arm too. Slowly, they come down to the ground, Mila laughing the whole way down as he clings to her like a needy child. (Probably) mockingly, she pats his back and ruffles his hair as Yuri stumbles about beside her, regaining his balance and land legs. “Sorry, you okay?”

“Of course I’m fine! I’m part Sidhe too, I’m not just gonna lose it from a bit of height,” Yuri snaps back, shaking his head once more and marching off while ignoring the remaining dizziness. The buds on his back where wings should have grown burn under Mila’s ever-so-obvious gaze on them, even through the illusion and layers of clothes over them. His fists clench bone-white by his sides. “Stop staring at me! If you’re going to help me break the curse, then help me break the curse damnit! You’ve already done far too much prowling around about my past as it is!”

“Sorry, Yuri,” Mila murmurs mournfully. There’s too much pity in her voice for Yuri to actually feel better about anything at all, but at least she stops staring at where his wings would be if they’d ever grown in. “How much farther is it to the castle?”

With a snap of his fingers and a burst of the magic the forest had gifted him, they’re already there by the time she asks. 

Yuri looks over the scene he’d left behind, eyeing over the key differences. The fire has been put out again, through the work of a forest fairy no doubt. There are a collection of peaceful fairies- both Sidhe and Pixies- that live together in a shrine hidden away deep in the forest. No one has seen a member of the organization in years and their sole purpose seems to revolve around keeping the enchanted forest healthy and thriving. The only reason anyone even knows they still exist are the ...kindly wooden signs they leave behind. This particular sign reads “WHOEVER LIT THIS FIRE CAN FUCK OFF”, which Mila finds utterly hilarious. 

Yuri and Katsuki’s campsite from last night is ash and dust. The purple mist has turned blue and seems to be reacting to the Sidhe princess’s presence- almost reverently (or perhaps fearfully), it parts a path for her wherever she walks. Yuri isn’t afforded the same treatment. 

There’s no sign of Otabek or his horse. 

The castle is the same as before. 

“That was another waste of magic,” Mila chides nonchalantly. She doesn’t really sound peeved about it- more like she’s chastising Yuri simply for the sake of chastising Yuri. Neither of them like walking anywhere if they can help it. Wings, horses, carriages, magic. Literally anything to make the journey faster is worth it.

“I didn’t want to walk with you anymore,” he says back, rolling his eyes dramatically when she turns to glare at him. “All you ever do is mock me and laugh at me!”

“Hey!” Mila marches up to him with her hands on her hips and a flush on her cheeks, making Yuri startle back a little. Did he actually manage to make her genuinely angry for once? Usually his snipes roll off her carefree demeanour like arrows deflecting off steel armour. The princess flips her hair over her shoulder and pouts at him in a hurt look that would have surely flustered any human man. “That’s not fair to me! You at least have to admit that I look cute doing it, too!”

Yuri lets out his response in a loud, long groaning sound that rises in pitch and distress every time Mila tries to interrupt it. Eventually, she simply shoves a frustrated hand over his mouth in a tight, clawing grip that Yuri can’t pry off even slightly. Looking away from him, Mila snaps her fingers casually and pops them over to the side of the castle- flaunting the exact same magic she’d shamed Yuri for seconds ago. 

“That’s a waste of magic,” he says immediately after she releases his face. “Hypocritical minx!”

“What, did you get a thesaurus for your birthday or something?” Mila snorts in derision and dismisses him in favour of directing all her attention to the castle. God, he hates her.

Yuri still can’t sense anything at all from the fortress, but Mila obviously does. The deep blue of her irises flickers a sharp and muddied purple for a moment, just a moment, and the smile on her face is gone. 

He rubs his face grouchily, the imprints of Mila’s fingers turning his cheeks red. Must be nice being a full Sidhe and having wings and magic. Must be nice being fully human and having normal parents and a straight shot to the throne, too. 

“I can sense a powerful curse, though I don’t think it’s as powerful as the legends have made it out to be. Honestly, it feels kind of… familiar to me? But I don’t want to believe it’s the curse I’m thinking of, because wow would that be stupid,” Mila says with a far-off look in her eyes and a disgruntled line to her mouth. “We should head back to the Fae Realm so I can double-check that I’m right about this in the royal library.”

Someone in the cosmos must really hate Yuri, because at this exact moment the forest they just exited out of starts to wail with all the shrillness and clarity of a bunch of pissed-off sacred trees. Branches are visibly stretching and moving like they’re made of gum instead of wood, the sound of a sword hacking at bark audible even from the distance they’re at, and Yuri catches a flash of dark leather armour through the greenery. Involuntarily, he makes a vaguely disgusted sound in his throat. Naturally, Mila catches this and looks over him, gauging his reaction. A huge, malicious, evil grin spreads across her face. 

“Yuri, who’s that?” she asks, voice light and bubbly in the way it gets when she wants something from someone. “Do you know him?”

He looks up at her warily through the strands of blond hair that have fallen in front of his eyes. She beams down at him. The picture of innocence and good intentions.

“I’ve never seen that man before in my life,” Yuri replies firmly. “The library is a good place to start. Let’s get going, already.”

“How dare you lie to my face?” Mila is too delighted to make the accusation sound harsh in the slightest. The smile on her face only continues to grow, along with the size of Yuri’s impending doom, probably. “I’m hurt, Yuri! And after all the years I’ve watched over you, too! C’mon, tell me who he is!”

“He’s called Otabek and he’s a hero for hire from Kazakhstan. He said something about taking me back to Russia? Which I’m not doing, so who gives a shit? Let’s get going already!” Yuri throws his hands in the air, stomping about in agitation. Mila starts to cackle and goosebumps erupt on his forearms. That’s not a good sound. “Will you shut up, you old bat?”

“Why don’t you go help him?” Mila shrugs, barely containing the remnants of her giggles. She’s trying to play this off like it’s a casual request and it’s not really working for her, what with the long excited build-up. Yuri looks to the forest slightly to the left of Otabek- who is still desperately fighting off waving, whipping vines and clawing crystal ferns and what seem to be exploding dandelion spores- with what he hopes is a suitably unimpressed look. The fairy beside him starts to twirl her hair around her finger, fiddling with the strands hypnotically. “It’s only fair, after all. You’re the one who set the forest after him.”

“It’s not my problem anymore,” he says with a matching shrug. “He’s handling himself fine.”

They both watch for a moment as a wandering vine wraps itself around Otabek’s ankle and he’s thrown into a helpfully waiting tree, his dragon-hide armour only barely saving him from a brutal set of broken ribs. 

“He’s still got his sword in his hand. He can take it,” Yuri assures Mila, who raises a single eyebrow at him and crosses her arms over her chest. Otabek, conveniently, loses his sword to a collection of vines at this moment as a turquoise mushroom pulls itself out of the forest floor and snaps at his ankles with razor-sharp, gleaming white teeth. Mila stares pointedly at him. 

Yuri sighs heavily, rolls his eyes, and snaps his fingers lazily. 

Mila cheers loudly enough that he hears her from where he’s now standing, even over the crashing and breaking and creaking of boughs and trunks and leaves around him. There’s a strange bubble of calm around the place where he stands as the entire shifting forest turns all attacks away from Yuri and towards Otabek. 

Dropping to his knees and laying a palm on the ground, Yuri closes his eyes and breathes in deeply. Tastes the damp earth in his throat and lets the magic in the air settle on his tongue. “Oi, forest. Thanks, but leave that guy alone.”

A single eye opens on the trunk of the nearest tree, blinking around moss and bark. Yuri points at Otabek, who’s desperately trying to get his sword back while avoiding the crowd of carnivorous mushrooms now after him. The eye closes, disappearing back into the bark. 

Heaving himself up from the ground, Yuri looks over the scene before him. The reaction from the forest is nearly instantaneous. Waving limbs from the nearby trees whirl back to their original position, the only sign they’d ever moved at all coming from the shaking leaves. Vines snake around his ankles as they slither up the trees to fall back into place overhead, and crystal ferns drop unceremoniously back into the ground wherever they feel. The exploding dandelion spores in the air fall all at once to the ground, harmless as flies, and the snapping mushroom begrudgingly leaves Otabek alone to return to its place in the ground. He watches the shroom yawn once, before it stills completely. 

The blade that was dropped on the ground gleams silver as Otabek slowly picks it up, the warrior eyeing the prince before him far more carefully than before. Despite the fight he’d just taken up against the enchanted woods, Otabek barely looks winded at all, only beat up. 

“I’d like to apologize,” Otabek begins, pressing a gloved hand to his injured side. An ugly purple bruise must already be forming under his armour and clothes where he got tossed around. The iron handcuffs are nowhere to be seen. Yuri feels an impulse to grab at his wrist and make sure the grass bandage that’s numbing it is still there, but he shoves the thought down quickly. That would only make him look stupid and vulnerable. Of course the grass bandage is still there. Otabek keeps talking, eyes steady on Yuri. Nothing about him ever seems to waver when he’s intent on something. “It was terribly wrong of me to use the handcuffs on you when I had begun to suspect you may have been a fairy of some sort. I knew iron was poisonous to your kind, yet I chanced it anyways, and left you to pay the price. I won’t ask you to accept my apology, but please at least accept my gratitude for calling off the forest from attacking me.”

Yuri scowls, marches closer, and stands on tiptoes to yell right into Otabek’s face. “Of course there’s no way I’m going to accept your apology, asshole! If I was a full Sidhe, you could have burned off my hand or even killed me! Do you even know what kind of shit could have gone down because of you?”

Infuriatingly, the hero’s face doesn’t flinch an inch from its earnest expression, even with Yuri practically spitting in his face. When he speaks, his voice is still at that calm, low timbre. “Yes, I’ve seen the wrath incurred from the world when a fairy is killed before. If you had burned up because of my mistake, I would have preferred to slit my own throat right there rather than bring back such disaster to my homeland and family.”

It doesn’t sound like the lie a coward offers to make themselves look more honourable. Everything about Otabek is honest in saying this. Yuri glares up at the sincerity in those ordinary brown eyes, waiting for it to waver or falter. It doesn’t. 

He leans out of Otabek’s face, sets back delicately on the soles of his shoes. Something in between them softens slightly, Yuri thinks. 

“It’s a damn good thing you didn’t kill me, then,” he says, holding up his magical grass bandaged wrist. Otabek’s eyes widen a little upon seeing it. That’s the only reaction he offers, or at least the only reaction Yuri can see. Maybe he’s just one of those people that are only readable after knowing them for a while. “We’re even. You tried to catch me and hurt me then let me go, I told the forest to kill you then told it to stop killing you. Get on your dumb horse and ride away already, Otabek Altin. You aren’t taking me back to Russia and the next time you cross me, you won’t get off so easily.”

“I can’t,” Otabek says, grimacing slightly and finally looking away with what is almost a trace of shame in the set of his mouth. 

“Seriously? I saved your ass and am prepared to let you off with a warning and you’re still trying to get me to come with you?” Yuri snarls, jabbing a finger into Otabek’s chest. “Do you have a death wish or something?”

“I mean, a pixie stole my horse,” Otabek clarifies somewhat abashedly, letting Yuri poke his chest without complaint. “I can’t get home without her.”

The prince’s finger stills. The forest around them hums knowingly, almost like it’s amused. Otabek doesn’t react to the earthly rumbling noise. He can’t hear the sounds and spirits of nature like Yuri can. Mila isn’t beside the castle anymore, having disappeared off somewhere. Probably back to the fairy realm like they were planning before she sent him off to help Otabek. 

“Am I supposed to help you with that or something?” Yuri says finally, pushing away from Otabek and lifting his head high in the air. “Go find your own monster horse. I have my own problems to deal with.”

“I wish you the best of luck with solving them, then,” Otabek says with a slight bow of his head. His ribs are probably hurt too much for him to bow fully like he wants to. Yuri’s eye twitches just a bit as the man takes a deep breath and turns away, heading further into the depths of the forest. 

His wrist is numb, but in working order. His borrowed magic is spinning eagerly in his gut and lungs, ready to flare up at any time. Otabek didn’t mean to hurt him with the handcuffs. 

If Yuri knows anything about Pixies, he knows Otabek is going to lose more than just his horse to them without some magical help. Especially with the injuries he’s already gained because of Yuri. 

The castle is still standing right where he left it. It won’t move if he leaves again. Mila is always able to find him wherever he goes through her magical conniving ways. Nothing will be lost if he abandons the fortress right now. 

It’s already been a long morning and the sun is barely hovering over the distant blue mountains. 

If this is the kind of day he’s in for, he doesn’t want to stand around waiting for any of it. 

Yuri thinks of a lonesome Otabek and the direction he went in, calls on his magic, and he snaps his fingers. 

It’s time to rescue a goddamn horse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PSA that i am gonna be taking a bit of a break from writing this story for a bit (like a couple weeks)- i already have about 3K for chapter 4, but i worked on this story all through april and i want to get back to my other story for a while now. I think working on things in a rotating style like this helps keep it feel fresh and funky all the way through for me, so i hope no one minds the wait!! <33 thanks for reading, as always!!

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on tumblr at [grassepi](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/grassepi)! 
> 
> (✿´‿`) thank you for reading! If you dropped a comment, it would really make my day ♡


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